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"YOU LAND AND LUG OUT THE TENT. 


THREE MEN IN A BOAT 


(TO SAY NOTHING 0F THE DOG) 




BY 


JEROME K. JEROME 


AUTHOR OP ''idle THOUGHTS OP AN IDLE FELLOW," BTC, BTC 


NEW YORK 

HURST & COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 



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PREFACE, 


HE chief beauty of this book lies not so much in 


its literary style, or in the extent and usefulness 
of the information it conveys, as in its simple truth- 
fulness. Its pages form the record of events that 
really happened. All that has been done is to color 
them ; and, for this, no extra charge has been made. 
George and Harris and Montmorency are not poetic 
ideals, but things of flesh and blood — especially 
George, who weighs about twelve stone. Other 
works may excel this in depth of thought and 
knowledge of human nature ; other books may rival 
it in originality and size ; but, for hopeless and incu- 
rable veracity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it. 
This, mora than all its other charms, will, it is felt, 
make the volume precious in the eye of the earnest 
reader, and will lend additional weight to the lesson 
that the story teaches. 



London, August, 1889. 



THREE MEN IN A BOAT 

(TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG). 


CHAPTER L 


Three Invalids.— Sufferings of George and Harris.— A victim to 
one hundred and seven fatal maladies.— Useful prescriptions. — 
Cure for liver complaint in children.— We agree that we are 
overworked, and need rest.— A week on the rolling deep ? — 
George suggests the Eiver.— Montmorency lodges an objec- 
tion. — Original motion carried by majority of three to one. 


HERE were four of us — George and William 


Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. 
We were sitting in my room, smoking and talking 
about how bad we were — ^bad from a medical point of 
view I mean, of course. 

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite 
nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordi- 
nary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that 
he hardly knew what he was doing ; and then George 
said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew 
what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that 
was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was 
out of order, because I had just been reading a 
patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the 
various symptoms by which a man could tell when 
his liver was out of order. I had them all. 



Three Men in a Boat. 


it is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a 
patent medicine advertisement without being impelled 
to the conclusion that I am suffering from the par- 
ticular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent 
form. The diagnosis seems in every case to corre- 
spond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever 
felt. 

I remember going to the British Museum one day 
to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of 
which I had a touch — hay fever, I fancy it was. I 
got down the book, and read all I came to read ; and 
then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the 
leaves, and began to indolently study diseases gen- 
erally. I forget which was the first distemper I 
plunged into — some fearful, devastating scourge, I 
know — and, before I had glanced half down the list 
of premonitory symptoms,’’ it was borne in upon 
me that I had fairly got it. 

I sat for a while, frozen with horror ; and then, in 
the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the 
pages. I came to typhoid fever — read the symptoms — 
discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it 
for months — without knowing it — wondered what else 
I had got; turned up St. Vitus’ dance — found, as I 
expected, that I had that too — began to get interested 
m my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, 
il l so started alphabetically — read up ague, and 
learned that I was sickening for it, and that the acute 
stage would commence in about another fortnight. 
Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in 
6 


Three Men in a Eoal. 


a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, 1 
might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe com- 
plications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been 
born with. I plodded conscientiously through the 
twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could con- 
clude I had not got was house-maid’s knee. 

I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed 
somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn’t I got 
house-maid’s knee? Why this invidious reservation? 
After awhile, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. 
I reflected that I had every other known malady in 
the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and deter- 
mined to do without house-maid’s knee. Gout, in its 
most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me 
without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had 
evidently been suffering with from boyhood. There 
were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded 
there was nothing else the matter with me. 

I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting 
case I must be from a medical point of view, what an 
acquisition I should be to a class I Students would 
have no need to ‘‘walk the hospitals,” if they had 
me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do 
would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their 
diploma. 

Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried 
to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at 
first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of a sudden, it 
seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed 
it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. 
7 


Three Men in a Boat. 


I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. 
It had stopped beating. 1 have since been induced 
to come to the opinion that it must have been there 
all the time, and must have been beating, but I can- 
not account for it. I patted myself all over my front, 
from what I call my waist up to my head, and I went 
a bit round each side, and a little way up the back. 
But I could not feel or hear anything. I tried to look 
at my tongue. I stuck it out as far as ever it would 
go, and shut one eye, and tried to examine it with the 
other. I could only see the tip, and the only thing 
that I could gain from that was to feel more certain 
than before that I had scarlet fever. 

I had walked into that reading-room a happy, 
healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck. 

I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of 
mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, 
and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I 
fancy I^m ill ; so I thought I would do him a good 
turn by going to him now. What a doctor wants,” 
I said, ‘4s practice. He shall have me. He will get 
more practice out of me than out of seventeen hun- 
dred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with 
only one or two diseases each.” So I went straight 
up and saw him, and he said : 

“ Well, what’s the matter with you ? ” 

I said : 

“I will not take up your time, dear boy, with 
telling you what is the matter with me. Life is 
brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. 

8 


Three Men in a Boat. 


But I will tell you what is not the matter with me. 
I have not got house-maid’s knee. Why I have not 
got house-maid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the 
fact remains that I have not got it. Everything 
else, however, I have got.” 

And I told him how I came to discover it all. 

Then he opened me and looked down me, and 
clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over 
the chest when I wasn’t expecting it — a cowardly 
thing to do, I call it — and immediately afterward 
butted me with the side of his head. After that, he 
sat down and wrote out a prescription and folded it 
up and gave it to me, and I put it in my pocket and 
went out. 

I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chem- 
iax’s, and handed it in. The man read it, and then 
handed it back. 

He said he didn’t keep it. 

I said : 

You are a chemist? 

He said : 

I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative store 
and family hotel combined, I might be able to 
oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers me.” 

I read the prescription. It ran : 

“ 1 lb. beefsteak, with 
1 pt. bitter beer 

every 6 hours. 

1 ten-mile walk every morning. 

1 bed at 11 sharp every night. 

And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t 
understand.” 


Three Men in a Boat. 


I followed the directions, with the happy result — 
speaking for myself— that my life was preserved, and 
is still going on. 

In the present instance, going back to the liver- 
pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mis- 
take, the chief among them being a general 

disinclination to work of any kind.’^ 

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. 
From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr 
to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me 
for a day. They did not know, then, that it was 
my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced 
state than now, and they used to put it down to 
laziness. 

Why, you skulking little devil, you,” they 
would say, ^^get up and do something for your 
living, can’t you ? ” — not knowing, of course, that I 
was ill. 

And they didn’t give me pills; they gave me 
clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it 
may appear, those clumps on the head often cured 
me — for the time being. I have known one clump 
on the head to have more effect upon my liver, and 
make me feel more anxious to go straight away 
then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, 
without further loss of time, than a whole box of 
pills does now. 

You know, it often is so — those simple, old- 
fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious 
than all the dispensary stuff. 

10 


Three Men in a Boat. 


We sat there for half an hour, describing to each 
other our maladies. I explained to George and 
William Harris how I felt when I got up in the 
morning, and William Harris told us how he felt 
when he went to bed; and George stood on the 
hearth-rug, and gave us a clever and powerful piece 
of acting, illustrative of how he felt in the night. 

George fancies he is ill; but there’s never any- 
thing really the matter with him, you know. 

At this point Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door 
to know if we were ready for supper. We smiled 
sadly at one another, and said we supposed we had 
better try to swallow a bit. Harris said a little 
something in one’s stomach often kept the disease 
in check; and Mrs. Poppets brought the tray in, 
and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a little 
steak and onions, and some rhubarb tart. 

I must have been very weak at the time, because 
1 know, after the first half hour or so, I seemed to 
take no interest whatever in my food — an unusual 
thing for me — and I didn’t want any cheese. 

This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lighted 
our pipes, and resumed the discussion upon our state 
of health. What it was that was actually the 
matter with us, we none of us could be sure of ; but 
the unanimous opinion was that it — whatever it 
was — had been brought on by overwork. 

“ What we want is rest,” said Harris. 

Best and a complete change,” said George. 
^‘The overstrain upon our brains has produced a 
IX 


Three Men in a Boat. 


general depression throughout the system. Change 
of scene, and absence of the necessity for thought, 
will restore the mental equilibrium.’^ 

George has a cousin, who is usually described in 
the charge-sheet as a medical student, so that he 
naturally has a somewhat family-physicianary way 
of putting things. 

I agreed with George, and suggested that we 
should seek out some retired and old-world spot, far 
from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny 
week among its drowsy lanes — some half-forgotten 
nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of 
the noisy world — some quaint-perched eyrie on the 
cliifs of Time, from whence the surging waves of 
the nineteenth century would sound far off and faint. 

Harris said he thought it would be humpy. He 
said he knew the sort of place I meant; where 
everybody went to bed at eight o'clock, and you 
couldn’t get a ^^Eeferee’’ for love or money, and 
had to walk ten miles to get your baccy. 

No,” said Harris, if you want rest and change, 
you can’t beat a sea trip.’’ 

I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does 
you '‘good when you are going to have a couple of 
months of it, but for a week, it is wicked. 

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in 
your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. 
You waive an aiiy adieu to the boys on shore, light 
your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as 
if you were Captain Cook. Sir Francis Drake, and 
U 


Men in a Boat. 


Christoplier Columbus all rolled into one. On Tues- 
day, you wish you hadnT come. On Wednesday, 
Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On 
Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, 
and to sit up on deck and answer with a wan, sweet 
smile, when kind-hearted people ask you how you 
feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, 
and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, 
with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand 
by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to 
thoroughly like it. 

I remember my brother-in-law going for a short 
sea trip once, for the benefit of his health. He took 
a return berth from London to Liverpool ; and when 
he got to Liverpool the only thing he was anxious 
about was to sell that return ticket. 

It was offered round the town at a tremendous 
reduction, so I am told ; and was eventually sold for 
eighteen 'pence to a bilious-looking youth who had 
just been advised by his medical men to go to the 
seaside and take exercise. 

‘^Seaside I said my brother-in-law, pressing the 
ticket affectionately into his hand ; why you’ll have 
enough to last you a lifetime ; and as for exercise i 
why, you’ll get more exercise, sitting, down on that 
ship, than you would turning somersaults on dry 
land.” 

He himself — my brother-in-law — came back by 
train. He said the Northwestern Eailway was healthy 
enough for him. 


13 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Another fellow I knew went for a week’s voyage 
round the coast, and before they started, the steward 
came to him to ask whether he would pay for each 
meal as he had it, or arrange before-hand for the 
whole series. 

The steward recommended the latter course, as it 
would come so much cheaper. He said they would 
do him for the whole week at two pounds five. He 
said for breakfast there would be fish, followed by a 
grill. Lunch was at one, and consisted of four 
courses. Dinner at six— soup, fish, entree, joint, 
poultry, salad, sweets, cheese, and dessert. And a 
light meat supper at ten. 

My friend thought he would close on the two- 
pound-five job (he is a hearty eater), and did so. 

Lunch came just as they were off Sheemess. He 
didn’t feel so hungry as he thought he should, and 
so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef and 
some ' strawberries and cream. He pondered a good 
deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed 
tr* that he had been eating nothing but boiled 
k for weeks^ ^r^d at other times it seemed that he 
r^nst have been living stra?*^rries and cream for 
7?ars. 

Neither the beef nor the strawbb^^'e: ^xeam 

'^''Ued happy, either — seemed disconteo.ted likb. 

Av six, they came and told him dinner was read^ 
TW announcement aroused no enthusiasm within 
him, but he felt that there was some of that two- 
pound-five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes 
14 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and things and went down. A pleasant odor ot onions 
and hot ham, mingled with fried fish and greens 
greeted him at the bottom of the ladder; and then 
the steward came up with an oily smile, and said : 
What can I get you, sir?” 

Get me out of this,” was the feeble reply. 

And they ran him up quick, and propped him ove: 
to leeward and left him. 

For the next four days he lived a simple and blame- 
less life on thin captain^s biscuits (I mean that the 
biscuits were thin, not the captain) and soda water ; 
but toward Saturday he got uppish and went in for 
weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorg- 
ing himself on chicken broth.*" He left the ship on 
Tuesday, and as it steamed away from the landing 
stage, he gazed after it regretfully. 

There she goes,” he said, there she goes, with 
two pounds^ worth of food on board that belongs to 
me, and that I haven’t had.” 

He said that if they had given him another day 
he thought he could have put it straight. 

So I set my face against the sea trip. Not, as I 
explained, upon my own account. I was never queer. 
But I was afraid for George. George said he should 
be all right, and would rather like it, but he would 
advise Harris and me not to think of it, as he felt 
sure we should both be ill. Harris said that, to him- 
self, it was always a mystery how people managed to 
get sick at sea — said he thought people must do it on 
15 


Three Men in a Boat. 


purpose, from affectation — said he had often wished 
to be, but had never been able. 

Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone 
across the channel when it was so rough that the 
passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he 
and the captain were the only two living souls on 
board who were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the 
second mate who were not ill ; but it was generally 
he and one other man. If not he and another man, 
then it was he by himself. 

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is seasick — 
on land. At sea you come across plenty of people 
very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I 
never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known 
at all what it was to be seasick. Where the thousands 
upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every 
ship hide themselves when they are on land is a 
mystery. 

If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yar- 
mouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming 
enigma easily enough. It was just off Southend Pier, 
I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of 
the portholes in a very dangerous position. I went 
up to him to try and save him. 

Hi I come further in,’’ I said, shaking him by the 
shoulder. You‘11 be overboard.” 

Oh, my I I wish I was,” was the only answer I 
could get; and here I had to leave him. 

Three weeks afterward I met him in the coffee- 
room of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, 
16 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved 
the sea. 

Good sailor I he replied, in answer to a mild 
young man’s envious query ; “well, I did feel a little 
queer o/ice, I confess. It was off Cape Horn. The 
vessel was wrecked the next morning.” 

I said : 

“ Weren’t you a little shaky by Southend Pier one 
day, and wanted to be thrown overboard ? ” 

“Southend Fieri” he replied, with a puzzled ex- 
pression. 

“ Yes ; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday three 
weeks.” 

“ Oh, ah — yes,” he answered, brightening up ; “I 
remember now. I did have a headache that after- 
noon. It was the pickles, yoa know. They were the 
most disgraceful pickles I ever tasted in a respectable 
boat. Did yoM have any ?” 

For myself, I have discovered an excellent pre- 
ventive against seasickness, in balancing myself. You 
stand in the centre of the deck, and as the ship 
heaves and pitches, you move your body about, so as 
to keep it always straight. When the front of the 
ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost 
touches your nose ; and when its back end gets up, 
you lean backward. This is all very well for an hour 
or two ; but you can’t balance yourself for a week. 

George said : 

Let’s go up the river.” 


17 


Three Men in a Boat. 


He said we should have fresh air, exercise and 
quiet; the constant change of scene would occupy 
our minds (including what there was of Harris’); 
and the hard work would give us a good £tppetite, 
and make us sleep well. 

Harris said he didn’t think George ought to do 
anything that would have a tendency to make him 
sleepier than he always was, as it might be danger- 
ous. He said he didn’t very well understand how 
George was going to sleep any more than he did now, 
seeing that there were only twenty-four hours in each 
day, summer and winter alike ; but thought that if 
he did sleep any more, he might just as well be dead, 
and so save his board and lodging. 

Harris said, however, that the river would suit him 
to a T.” I don't know what a T ” is (except a 
sixpenny one, which includes bread and butter and 
cake ad lih.y and is cheap at the price, if you haven’t 
had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody, how- 
ever, which is greatly to its credit. 

It suited me to a “ T ” too, and Harris and I both 
said it was a good idea of George’s ; and we said it 
in a tone cnat seemed to somehow imply that we 
were surprised that George should have come out so 
sensible. 

The only one who was not struck with the sugges- 
tion was Montmorency. He never did care for the 
river, did Montmorency. 

It’s all very well for you fellows,” he says ; you 
like it, but I don’t. There’s nothing for me to do. 

18 


Three Men in a Boat 


Scenery is not in my line, and I don’t smoke. If I 
see a rat, you won’t stop ; and if I go to sleep, you 
get fooling about with the boat, and slop me over- 
board. If you ask me, I call the whole thing bally 
foolishness.” 

We were three to one, however, and the motion 
was carried, / 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER II, 


Plans discussed.— Pleasures of “camping out,” on fine nights** 
Ditto, wet nights.— Compromise decided on.— Montmorencj 
first impressions of. — Fears lest he is too good for this world 
fear subsequently dismissed as groundless.— Meeting adjourns. 


E pulled out the maps and discussed plans. 


We arranged to start on the following Satur- 
day from Kingston. Harris and I would go down in 
the morning and take the boat up to Chertsey, and 
George, who would not be able to get away from the 
City till the afternoon (George goes to sleep at a 
bank from ten to four each day, except Saturdays, 
when they wake him up and put him outside at two), 
would meet us there. 

Should we camp out,’’ or sleep at inns? 

George and I were for camping out. We ss#>id it 
would be so wild and free, so patriarchal like. 

Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun fades 
from the hearts of the cold, sad clouds. Silent^ like 
sorrowing children, the birds have ceased their song, 
and only the moor-hen’s plaintive cry and the harsh 
croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around 
the couch of waters, where the dying day breathes 
cut her last. 

From the dim woods on either bank, Night’s 
ghostly army, the gray shadows, crept out with 
noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rear-guard 
of the light, and pass with noiseless, unseen fee^ 



Three Men in a Boat, 


above the waving river-grass, and through the sigh- 
ing rushes; and Night, upon her somber throne, 
folds her black wings above the darkening world, 
and, from her phantom palace, lighted by the pale 
stars, reigns in stillness. 

Then we run our little boat into some quiet nook, 
and the tent is pitched, and the frugal supper cooked 
and eaten. Then the big pipes are filled and lighted, 
and the pleasant chat goes round in musical under- 
tone; while, in the pauses of our talk, the river 
playing round the boat, prattles strange old tales 
and secrets, sings low the old child’s song that it has 
sung so many thousand years — will sing so many 
thousand years to come, before its voice grows 
harsh and cold — a song that we, who have learned 
to love its changing face, who have so often nestled 
on its yielding bosom, think, somehow, we under- 
stand, though we could not tell you in mere words, 
the story that we listen to. 

And we sit there, by its margin, while the moon^ 
who loves it, too, stoops down to kiss it with a 
sister s kiss, and throws her silver arms around it 
clingingly; and we watch it as it flows, ever sing- 
ing, ever whispering, out to meet its king, the sea — 
till our voices die away in silence, and the pipes go 
out, till we, commonplace, everyday young men 
enough, feel strangely full of thoughts, half sad, 
half sweet, and do not care or want to speak — till 
we laugh, and, rising, knock the ashes from our 
biMed-out pipes, and say Good-night,” and, lulled 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


by the lapping water and the rustling trees, we fall 
asleep beneath the great, still stars, and dream that 
the world is young again — young and sweet as she 
used to be ere the centuries of fret and care had 
furrowed her fair face, ere her children’s sins and 
follies had made old her loving heart — sweet as she 
was in those bygone days when, a new-made 
mother, she nursed us, her children, upon her own 
deep breast — ere the wiles of painted civilization 
had lured us away from her fond arms, and the 
poisoned sneers of artificiality had made us ashamed 
the simple life we led with her, and the simple 
stately home where mankind was born so many 
thousand years ago. 

/ 

Harris said : 

“ How about when it rained ? ’’ 

You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry 
about Harris — no wild yearning for the unattain- 
able. Harris never “weeps, he knows not why.” 
If Harris’ eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is be- 
cause Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put 
too much Worcester over his chop. 

If you were to stand at night by the seashore 
with Harris, and say : 

“ Hark I do you not hear ? Is it but the mermaids 
singing deep below the waving waters ; or sad spirits, 
chanting dirges for white corpses, held by seaweed ? ” 
Harris would take you by the arm and say : 

^ I kiiow what it is, old man ; you’ve got a chilL 
22 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Now, you come along with me. I know a place 
round the corner here, where you can get a drop of 
the finest Scotch whiskey you ever tasted— put you 
right in less than no time.’^ 

Harris always does know a place round the corner 
,vhere you can get something brilliant in the drink- 
ing line. I believe that if you met Harris up in 
paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would 
immediately greet you with : 

'^So glad you’ve come, old fellow; I’ve found a 
nice place round the corner here, where you can get 
some really first-class nectar.” 

In the present instance, however, as regarded the 
camping out, his practical view of the matter came 
as a very timely hint. Camping out in rainy 
weather is not pleasant. 

It is evening. You are wet through, and there is 
a good two inches of water in the boat, and all the 
things are damp. You find a place on the banks 
that is not quite so puddly as other places you have 
seen, and you land and lug out the tent, and two of 
you proceed to fix it. 

' Ic is soaked and heavy, and it flops about, 
and tumbles down on you, and clings round your 
head and makes you mad. The rain is pouring 
steadily down all the time. It is difficult enough 
to fix a tent in dry weather ; in wet, the task 
becomes herculean. Instead of helping you it 
seems to you that the other man is simply play- 
ing the fool. Just as you get your side beauti- 
23 


Three Men in a Boat. 


fiilly fixed, he gives it a hoist from his end and 
spoils it all. 

“ Here I what are you up to ? ’’ you call out. 

What are you up to ? he retorts ; leggo, can’t 
you ? ” 

Don’t pull it ; you’ve got it all wrong, you 
stupid as^; I ” you shout. 

No, I haven’t,” he yells ; let go your side I ” 

“I tell you you’ve got it all wrong I” you roar, 
wishing that you could get at him; and you give 
your ropes a lug that pulls all his pegs out. 

‘‘ Ah, the bally idiot ! ” you hear him mutter to 
himself; and then comes a savage haul, and away 
goes your side. You lay down the mallet and start 
to go round to tell him what you think of the whole 
business, and at the same time he starts round in the 
same direction to come and explain his views to you. 
And you follow each other round and round, swearing 
at each other until the tent tumbles down in a heap, 
and leaves you looking at each other across its ruins, 
when you both indignantly exclaim in the same 
breath : 

There you are I what did I tell you ? ” 

Meanwhile the third man, who has been bailing 
out the boat, and who has spilled the water down his 
sleeve, and has been cursing away to himself steadily 
for the last ten minutes, wants to know what the 
thundering blazes you’re playing at, and why the 
blarmed tent isn’t up yet. 

At last, somehow or other, it does get up, and you 

24 


Three Men in a Boat. 


land the things. It is hopeless attempting to make 
a wood fire, so you light the methylated spirit stove, 
and crowd round that. 

Eain water is the chief article of diet at supper. 
The bread is two-thirds rain water, the beefsteak pie 
is exceedingly rich in it; and the jam, and the but- 
ter, and the salt, and the wfiee, have all combined 
with it to make soup. 

After supper, you find ;5r7ur tobacco is damp, and 
you cannot smoke. LuciJ'ily you have a bottle of the 
stuff that cheers and inebriates, if taken in proper 
quantity, and this restores to you sufficient interest in 
life to induce you to go to bed. 

There you dream that an elephant has suddenly 
sat down on your chest, and that the volcano has 
exploded and thrown you down to the bottom of the 
sea — the elephant still sleeping peacefully on your 
bosom. You wake up and grasp the idea that some - 
thing terrible really has happened. Your first im- 
pression is that the end of the world has come ; and 
then you think that this cannot be, and that it is 
thieves and murderers, or else fire, and this opinion 
you express in the usual method. No help comes, 
however, and all you know is that thousands of 
people are kicking you, and you are being smothered 

Somebody else seems in trouble too. You can hear 
his faint cries coming from underneath your bed. 
Determining, at all events, to sell your life dearly, 
you struggle frantically, hitting out right and left 
with arms and legs, and yelling lustily the while, and 
25 


Three Men in a Boat. 


at last something gives way and you find your head 
in the fresh nir. Two feet off, you dimly observe a 
half-dressed rufnan waiting to kill you, and you are 
preparing for a life-and-death struggle with him, 
when it begins to dawn upon you that it*s Jim. 

‘‘Oh, it’s you, is it?*’ he says, recognizing you at 
the same moment. 

“Yes,” you answer, rubbing your eyes; “what’s 
happened?” 

“Bally tent’s blown down, I think,” he says. 
“Where’s Bill?” 

Then you both raise up your voices and shout for 
“ Bill ! ” and the ground beneath you heaves and 
rocks, and the muffled voice that you heard before 
replies from out the ruin : 

“Get off my head, can’t you ? ” 

And Bill struggles out, a muddy, trampled wreck, 
and in an unnecessarily aggressive mood —he being 
under the evident belief that the whole thing has 
been done on purpose. 

In the morning you are all three speechless, owing 
to having caught severe colds in the night; you also 
feel very quarrelsome, and you swear at each other in 
hoarse whispers during the whole of breakfast-time. 

We therefore decide that we should sleep out ob 
fine nights ; and hotel it, and inn it, and pub. it, like 
respectable folks, when it was wet, or when v;o felt 
inclined for a change. 

Montmorency hailed this compromise with much 

26 


Huee Meo iii d. Boau 


approval. He does not revel in romantic solitude. 
Give him something noisy; and if a trifle low, so 
much the jollier. To look at Montmorency you 
would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the 
earth, for some reason withheld from mankind, in 
the shape of a small fox-terrier. There is a sort of Oh- 
what-a-wicked-world-this-is -and-how-I-wish-I-could- 
do-something-to-make-it-better-and-nobler expression 
about Montmorency that has been known to bring 
the tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gentle- 
men. 

When first he came to live at my expense, I never 
thought I should be able to get him to stop long. 
I used to sit down and look at him, as he sat on the 
rug and looked up at me, and think : Oh, that dog 

will never live. He will be snatched up to the bright 
skies in a chariot, that is what will happen to him.” 

But, when I had paid for about a dozen chickens 
that he had killed ; and had dragged him, growling 
and kicking, by the scrufl* of his neck, out of a 
hundred and fourteen street fights ; and had had a 
dead cat brought round for my inspection by an 
irate female, who called me a murderer; and had 
been summoned by the man next door but one for 
having a ferocious dog at large, that had kept him 
pinned up in his own tool-shed, afraid to venture his 
nose outside the door, for over two hours on a cold 
night ; and had learned that the gardener, unknown 
to myself, had won thirty shillings by backing him 
to kill rats against time, then I began to think that 

sa 


Three Men in a Boat. 


maybe they’d let him remain on earth for a bit 
longer, after all. 

To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the 
most disreputable dogs to be found in the town, and 
lead them out to march round the slums to fight 
other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency’s idea of 
“ life and so, as I before observed, he gave to the 
suggestion of inns, and pubs., and hotels his most 
emphatic approbation. 

Having thus settled the sleeping arrangements to 
the satisfaction of all four of us, the only thing left 
to discuss was what we should take with us ; and 
this we had begun to argue, when Harris said he’d 
had enough oratory for one night, and proposed that 
we should go out and have a smile, saying that he 
had found a place, round by the square, where you 
could really get a drop of Irish worth drinking. 

George said he felt thirsty (I never knew George 
when he didn’t) ; and, as I had a presentiment that a 
little whiskey, warm, with a slice of lemon, would 
do my complaint good, the debate was, by common 
assent, adjourned to the following night; and the 
assembly put on its hats and went out. 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER in. 

Arrangements settled. — Harris’ method of doing work. — How 
the elderly family man puts up a picture.— George makes 
a sensible remark. — Delights of early morning bathing.— 
Provisions for getting upset. 

S O, on the following evening, we again assembled 
to discuss and arrange our plans. Harris said : 
‘‘Now, the first thing to settle is what to take 
with us. Now, you get a bit of paper and write 
down, J., and you get the grocery catalogue, George, 
and somebody give me a bit of pencil, and then I’ll 
make out a list.” 

That^s Harris all over — so ready to take the burden 
of everything himself, and put it on the backs of 
other people. 

He always reminds me of my poor Uncle Podger. 
You never saw such a commotion up and down a 
house in all your life as when my Uncle Podger 
undertook to do a job. A picture would have come 
home from the framemakers and be standing in the 
dining-room, waiting to be put up, and Aunt Podger 
would ask what was to be done with it, and Uncle 
Podger would say : 

“Oh, you leave that to me. Don’t you, any of 
you, worry yourselves about that. Fll do all that.” 
And then he would take off his coat and begin. 
He would send the girl out for sixpen’grth of nails, 
29 


jrtiree Men in a Boat, 


and bhen on© of the boys after her to tell her what 
size to get; and, from that, he would gradually 
worl?. ilown, and start the whole house. 

Now you go and get me my hammer. Will,” he 
would shout; ^‘and you bring me the rule, Tom; 
and I shall want the step-ladder, and I had better 
have a kitchen-chair, too; and, Jim! you run 
round to Mr. Goggles, and tell him ‘Pa's kind 
regards, and hopes his leg’s better ; and will he lend 
him his spirit-level?' And don’t you go, Maria, 
because I shall want somebody to hold me the 
light; and when the girl comes back, she must go 
out /igain for a bit of picture-cord; and Tom — 
where's Tom? — Tom, you come here; I shall want 
you to hand me up the picture.” 

And then he would lift up the picture, and drop 
it, and it would come out of the frame, and he 
would try to save the glass, and cut himself; and 
then he would spring round the room, looking for 
his handkerchief. He could not find his handker- 
chief, because it was in the pocket of the coat he 
had taken off, and he did not know where he had 
put the coat, and all the house had to leave off 
looking for his tools, and start looking for his coat 
while he would dance round and hinder them. 

“ Doesn’t anybody in the whole house know 
where my coat is ? I never came across such a set 
in all my life — upon my word I didn’t. Six of you I 
— and you can’t find a coat that I put down not fire 
lointltes sago. Wdl, of all the — — 

80 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Then he’d get up, and find that he had been 
ting on it, and would call out: 

‘‘Oh, you can give it up I I’ve found it myself 
now. Might just as well ask the cat to find anything 
as expect you people to find it.” 

And, when half an hour had been spent in tying 
up his finger, and a new glass had been got, and the 
tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the candle 
had been brought, he would have another go, the 
whole family including the girl and the charwoman, 
standing round in a semi-circle, ready to help. Two 
people would have to hold the chair, and a third 
would help him up on it, ‘and hold him there, and a 
fourth would hand him a nail, and a fifth would 
pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of 
the nail, and drop it. 

“ There I ” he would say, in an injured tone, “ now 
the nail’s gone,” 

And we weu-d all have to go down on our knees 
and grovel for it, while he would stand on the chair, 
and grunt, and want to know if he was to be kept 
there all the evening. 

The nail would be found at last, and by that time 
he would have lost the hammer. 

“Where’s the hammer? What did I do with 
the hammer? Great Heavens I Seven of you, 
gaping round there, and you don’t know what I did 
with the hammer I ” 

We would find the hammer for him, and then he 
would have lost sight of the mark he had made on the 

81 


Three Men in a Boat. 


wall, where the nail was to go in, and each of us had 
to get up on a chair, beside him, and see if he could 
find it ; and we would each discover it in a different 
place, and he would call us all fools, one after another, 
and tell us to get down. And he would take the rule, 
and re-measure, and find that he wanted half thirty- 
one and three-eighths inches from the corner, and 
would try to do it in his head, and go mad. 

And we would all try to do it in our heads, and all 
arrive at different results, and sneer at one another. 
And in the general row, the original number would 
be forgotten, and Uncle Podger would have to meas- 
ure it again. 

He would use a bit of string this time, and at the 
critical moment, when the old fool was leaning over 
the chair at an angle of forty -five, and trying to reach 
a point three inches beyond what was possible for 
him to reach, the string would slip, and down he 
would slide on to the piano, a really fine musical effect 
being produced by the suddenness with which his 
head and body struck all the notes at the same time. 

And Aunt Maria would say that she would not 
allow the children to stand round and hear such 
language. 

At last. Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed 
again, and put the point of the nail on it with his 
left hand, and take the hammer in his right hand. 
And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb, 
and drop the hammer, with a yell, on somebody^s toea 

Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time 

82 


Three Men in a Boat, 


Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the 
wall, she hoped he’d let her know in time, so that she 
could make arrangements to go and spend a week 
with her mother while it was being done. 

^'Ohl you women, you make such a fiiss over 
everything,” Uncle Podger would reply, picking him- 
self up, Why, I like doing a little job of this sort.” 

And then he would have another try, and at the 
second blow the nail would go clean through the 
plaster, and half the hammer after it, and Uncle 
Podger be precipitated against the wall with force 
nearly sufficient to flatten his nose. 

Then we had to find the rule and the string again, 
and a new hole was made ; and about midnight, the 
picture would be up — very crooked and insecure, the 
wall for yards round looking as if it had been 
smoothed down with a rake, and everybody dead 
beat and wretched — except Uncle Podger. 

There you are,” he would say, stepping heavily 
offi the chair on to the charwoman’s corns, and sur* 
veying the mess he had made with evident pride. 
'‘Why, some people would have had a man in to do 
a little thing like that I” 

Harris will be just that sort of man when he grows 
up, I know, and I told him so. I said I could not 
permit him to take so much labor upon himself. I 
said: 

" No; you get the paper, and the pencil, and the cat- 
alogue, and George write down, and I’ll do the work.” 

The first list we made out had to be discarded. It 

8 83 


Three Men in a Be at. 


was clear that the upper reaches of the Thames 
would not allow of the navigation of a boat suffi 
ciently large to take the things we had set down as 
indispensable ; so we tore the list up, and looked at 
one another. 

George said; 

You know we are on a wrong track altogether. 
We must not think of the things we could do with, 
but only of the things that we can’t do without.’^ 

George comes out really quite sensible at times. 
You’d be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, 
not merely as regards the present case, but with 
reference to our trip up the river of life, generally. 
How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat 
till it is ever in danger of swamping with a store of 
foolish things which they think essential to the pleas- 
ure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only 
useless lumber. 

How they pile the poor little craft mast-high wkh 
fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, 
and a host of swell friends that do r\ot care twopence 
for them, and that they do not cai‘e three ha’pence 
for; with expensive entertainments that nobody en- 
joys, with formalities and fashions, with pretense and 
ostentation, and with — oh, heaviest, maddest lumber 
of all I— the dread of what will my neighbor think, 
with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, 
with empty show that, like the criminal’s iron crown 
of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head 
that wears it I 


84 


Three Men in a Boat. 


It is lumber, man — all lumber I Throw it over- 
board. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you 
nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome 
and dangerous to manage, you never know a mo- 
ment’s freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a 
moment’s rest for dreamy laziness — no time to watch 
the windy shadows skimming lightly o’er the shal- 
lows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out 
among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin 
looking down at their own image-; or the woods all 
green and golden, or the lilies white ana yellow, or 
the somber-waving rushes, c? the sedges, or the or- 
chids, or the blue forget-me-nots. 

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of 
life bft light, packed with only what you need — a 
homely home and simple pleasures, one or two 
friends, worth the name, some one to love and some 
one to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, 
enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more 
than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing. 

You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it 
will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter 
so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise 
will stand water. You will have time to think as 
well to work. Time to drink in life’s sunshine — 
time to listen to the JEolian music that the wind ol 
God draws from the human heartstrings around us — 
time to 

I beg your pardon, really. I quite forgot. 

Wfell, 'We left tho Ti)^to Gbctrge, and h» began it 

85 


Three Men in a Boat. 


^We won’t take a tent/’ suggested George; 
will have a boat with a cover. It is ever so much 
simpler, and more comfortable.” 

It seemed a good thought, and we adopted it. I 
do not know whether you have ever seen the thing 
I mean. You fix iron hoops up over the boat, and 
stretch a huge canvas over them, and fasten it down 
all round, from stem to stern, and it converts the boat 
into a sort of little house, and it is beautifully cozy, 
though a trifle stufly ; but there, everything has its 
drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-indaw 
died, and they came down upon him for the fimeral 
expenses. 

George said that in that case we must take a rug 
each, a lamp, some soap, a brush and comb (between 
us), a toothbrush (each), a basin, some tooth-powder, 
some shaving tackle (sounds like a French exercise, 
doesn’t it?) and a couple of big towels for bathing. 
I notice that people always make gigantic arrange- 
ments for bathing when they are going anywhere 
near the water, but that they don’t bathe much when 
they are there. 

It is the same when you go to the seaside. I 
always determine — ^when thinking over the matter in 
London — that I’ll get up early every morning, and 
go and have a dip before breakfast, and I religiously 
pack up a pair of drawers and a bath towel. I 
always get red bathing-drawers. I rather fancy my- 
self in red drawers. They suit my complexion so. 
But when I get to the sea I don’t feel somehow f hnt 
8$ 


Three Men in a Boat 


I want that early morning bath nearly so much as I 
did when I was in town. 

On the contrary, I feel more that I want to stop in 
bed till the last moment, and then come down and 
have my breakfast. Once or twice virtue has tri- 
umphed, and I ha VO got out at six and half-dressed 
myself, and have taken my drawers and towel, and 
stumbled dismally off. But I haven^t enjoyed it. 
They seem to keep a specially cutting east wind 
waiting for me, when I go to bathe in the early 
morning; and they pick out all the three-cornered 
stones, and put them on the top, and they sharpen 
up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of 
sand so that I can’t see them, and they take the sea 
and put it two miles out, so that I have to huddle 
myself up in my arms and hop, shivering, through 
six inches of water. And when I do get to the sea, 
it is rough and quite insulting. 

One huge wave catches me up and chucks me in a 
sitting posture, as hard as ever it can, down on to a 
rock which has been put there for me. And, before 
I’ve said ^‘Ohl Ugh I” and found out what has 
gone, the wave comes back and carries me out to 
mid-ocean. I begin to strike out frantically for the 
shore, and wonder if I shall ever see home and 
friends again, and wish I’d been kinder to my little 
sister when a boy (when / was a boy, I mean). Just 
when I have given up all hope, a wave retires and 
leaves me sprawling like a star-fish on the sand, and 
I get up and look back and find that I’ve been 


Three Men in n Boat. 


swimming for my life in two feet of water. I hop 
back and dress, and crawl home, where I have to 
pretend I liked it. 

In the present instance, we all talked as if wa 
were going to have a long swim every morning, 
George said it was so pleasant to wake up in the boav 
in the fresh morning, and plunge into the limpi<ji 
river, Harris said there was nothing like a swim 
before breakfast to give you an appetite. He said 
it always gave him an appetite. George said that 
if it was going to make Harris eat more than Harris 
ordinarily eat, then he should protest against Harris 
having a bath at all. 

He said there would be quite enough hard work in 
towing sufficient food for Harris up against stream, 
as it was. 

I urged upon George, however, how much pleas- 
anter it would be to have Harris clean and fresh 
about the boat, even if we did have to take a few 
more hundredweight of provisions; and he got to 
see it in my light, and withdrew his opposition to 
Harris^ bath. 

Agreed, finally, that we should take three bath 
towels, so as not to keep each other waiting. 

For clothes, George said two suits of flannel would 
be sufficient, as we could wash them ourselves, in 
the river, when they got dirty. We asked him if 
he had ever tried washing flannels in the river, and 
he replied: *‘No, not exactly himself like; but he 
38 


Tiiree Men in a Boat. 


knew some fellows who had, and it was easy- 
enough;*’ and Harris and I were weak enough to 
fancy he knew what he was talking about, and that 
three respectable young men, without position or in- 
fluence, and with no experience in washing, could 
really clean their own shirts and trousers in the river 
Thames with a bit of soap. 

We were to learn in the days to come, when it was 
too late, that George was a miserable impostor, who 
could evidently have known nothing whatever about 
the matter. If you had seen these clothes after — 
but, as the shilling shockers say, we anticipate. 

George impressed upon us to take a change of 
under-things and plenty of socks, in case we got up- 
set and wanted a change; also plenty of handker- 
chiefs, as they would do to wipe things, and a pair 
of leather boots as well as our boating-shoes, as we 
should want them if we got upset. 


89 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER IV. 


The food question.— Objection to paraflBne oil as an atmosphere.— 
Advantages of cheese as a traveling companion. — A married 
woman deserts her home. — Further provision for getting upset. 
—I pack.— Cussedness of tooth brushes.— George and Harris 
pack.— Awful behavior of Montmorency. — We retire to rest. 


George said : 

“Begin with breakfast/^ (George is so practical.) 
“Now, for breakfast we shall want a frying-pan’^ — 
(Harris said it was indigestible; but we merely urged 
him not to be an ass, and George went on) — a teapot 
and a kettle, and a methylated spirit stove.” 

“No oil,” said George, with a significant look; and 
Harris and I agreed. 

He had taken up an oil-stove once, but “never 
again.” It had been like living in an oil-shop that 
week. It oozed. I never saw such a thing as 
paraffine oil is to ooze. We kept it in the nose of 
the boat, and from there it oozed down to the rudder, 
impregnating the whole boat and everything in it on 
its way, and it oozed over the river, and saturated 
the scenery and spoiled the atmosphere. Sometimes 
a westerly oily wind blew, and at other times an 
easterly oily wind, and sometimes a northerly oily 
wind, and maybe a southerly oily wind ; but whether 
it came from the artic snows or was raised in the 



‘HEN we discussed the food question. 


40 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Wiiooe of the desert sands, it came alike to us laden 
with the fragrance of paraffine oil. 

And that oil oozed up and ruined the sunset ; 
and as for the moonbeams, they positively reeked of 
paraffine. 

We tried to get away from it at Marlow. We left 
the boat by the bridge, and took a walk through the 
town to escape it, but it followed us. The whole 
town was full of oil. We passed through the church- 
yard, and it seemed as if the people had been buried 
in oil. The High Street stunk of oil ; we wondered 
how people could live in it. And we walked miles 
upon miles out Birmingham way ; but it was no use, 
the country was steeped in oil. 

At the end of that trip we met together at mid- 
night in a lonely field, under a blasted oak, and took 
an awful oath (we had been swearing for a whole 
week about the thing in an ordinary, middle-class 
way, but this was a swell affair) — an awful oath 
never to take paraffine oil with us in a boat again — 
except, of course, in case of sickness. 

Therefore, in the present instance, we confined 
ourselves to methylated spirit. Even that is bad 
enough. You get methylated pie and methylated 
cake. But methylated spirit is more wholesome 
when taken into the system in large quantities than 
paraffine oil. 

For other breakfast things, George suggested eggs 
and bacon, which were easy to cook, cold meat, tea, 
bread and butter, and jam. For lunch, he said we 
41 


Three Men in a Boat. 


could have biscuits, cold meat, bread and butter, and 
jam — but no cheese. Cheese, like oil, makes too much 
of itself. It wants the whole boat to itself. It goes 
through the hamper, and gives a cheesy flavor to 
everything else there. You can’t tell whether you 
are eating apple-pie or German sausage, or straw- 
berries and cream. It all seems cheese. There i» 
too much odor about cheese. 

I remember a friend of mine buying a couple of 
cheeses at Liverpool. Splendid cheeses they were, 
ripe and mellow, and with a two-hundred horse- 
power scent about them that might have been war- 
ranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at 
two hundred yards. I was in Liverpool at the time, 
and my friend said that if I didn't mind he would 
get me to take them back with me to London, as he 
should not be coming up for a day or two himself, 
and he did not think that the cheeses ought to be 
kept much longer. 

“Oh, with pleasure, dear boy,’’ I replied, “with 
pleasure.” 

I called for the cheeses and took them away in a 
cab. It was a ramshackle affair, dragged along by a 
knock-kneed, broken-winded somnambulist, which 
his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm, during con- 
versation, referred to as a horse. I put the cheeses 
on the top, and we started off at a shamble that 
would have done credit to the swiftest steam-roller 
ever built, and all went merry as a funeral bell until 
we turned the corner. There the wind carried a 
42 


Three Men in a Boat. 


whiff from the cheeses full on to our steed. It woke 
him up, and, with a snort of terror, he dashed off at 
three miles an hour. The wind still blew in his 
direction, and before we reached the end of the 
street he was laying himself out at the rate of 
nearly four miles an hour, leaving the cripples and 
stout old ladies simply nowhere. 

It took two porters as well as a driver to hold him 
in at the station, and I do not think they would 
have done it even then had not one of the men had 
the presence of mind to put a handkerchief over his 
nose, and to light a bit of brown paper. 

I took my ticket and marched proudly up the 
platform with my cheeses, the people falling back 
respectfully on either side. The train was crowded, 
and I had to get into a carriage where there were 
already seven other people. One crusty old gentle- 
man objected, but I got in, notwithstanding, and, 
putting my cheeses upon the rack, squeezed down 
with a pleasant smile, and said it was a warm day. 
A few moments passed, and then the old gentleman 
began to fidget. 

“Very close in here,’Mie said. 

“ Quite oppressive,^' said the man next him. 

And then they both began sniffing, and at the 
third sniff they caught it right on the chest, and 
rose up without another word and went out. And 
then a stout lady got up and said it was disgraceful 
that a respectable married woman should be harried 
abt«it in this W^y^ an'd gathened up a ?.?ld 
4B 


Three Men in a Boat. 


eight parcels and went. The remaining four pas- 
sengers sat on for awhile until a solemn-looking 
man in the corner, who, from his dress and general 
appearance, seemed to belong to the undertaker 
class, said it put him in mind of dead baby; and 
the other three passengers tried to get out of the 
door at the same time, and hurt themselves. 

I smiled at the black gentleman, and said I 
thought we were going to have the carriage to our- 
selves ; and he laughed pleasantly, and said that 
some people made such a fuss over a little thing. 
But even he grew strangely depressed after we had 
started, and so, when we reached Crewe, I asked 
him to come and have a drink. He accepted, and 
we forced our way into the buffet, where we yelled, 
and stamped, and waved our umbrellas for a quarter 
of an hour ; and then a young lady came, and asked 
us if we wanted anything. 

What’s yours? I said, turning to my friend. 

*H’ll have half-a-crown’s worthy of brandy, neat, . 
if you please, miss,’’ he responded. 

And he went off quietly after he had drunk it and 
got into another carriage, which I thought mean. 

From Crewe I had the compartment to myself, 
though the train was crowded. As we drew up at 
the different stations, the people, seeing my empty 
carriage, would rush for it. ^^Here y’ are, Maria; 
come along, plenty of room.” ‘^All right, Tom^ 
we’ll get in here,” they would shout. And they 
would run along, carrying heavy bags, and fight 
44 


Three Men in a Boat. 


round the door to get in first. And one would open 
the door and mount the steps, and stagger back into 
the arms of the man behind him ; and they would 
all come and have a sniff, and then drop off and 
squeeze into other carriages, or pay the difference and 
go first. 

From Euston I took the cheeses down to my 
friend’s house. When his wife came into the room 
she smelled round for an instant. Then she said : 
What is it ? Tell me the worst.’’ 

I said : 

“It’s cheeses. Tom bought them in Liverpool, 
and asked me to bring them up with me.” 

And I added that I hoped she understood that it 
had nothing to do with me ; and she said that she 
was sure of that, but that she would speak to Tom 
about it when he came back. 

My friend was detained in Liverpool longer than 
he expected; and three days later, as he hadn’t 
returned home, his wife called on me. She said : 

“What did Tom say about those cheeses?” 

I replied that he had directed they were to be 
kept in a moist place, and that nobody was to touch 
them. 

She said : 

/‘Nobody’s likely to touch them. Had he smelled 
them?” 

I thought he had, and added that he seemed 
greatly attached to them. 

“You think he would be upset,” she queried “if 

45 


Three Men in a Boat. 


I gave a man a sovereign to take them away and 
bury them?^^ 

I answered that I thought he would never smile 
again. 

An idea struck her. She said : 

"Do you mind keeping them for him? Let me 
send them round to you.’^ 

"Madam/^ I replied, "for myself I like the smell 
of cheese, and the journey the other day with them 
from Liverpool I shall ever look back upon as a 
happy ending to a pleasant holiday. But, in this 
world, we must consider others. The lady under 
v^hose roof I have the honor of residing is a widow, 
and for all I know, possibly an orphan too. She 
has a strong, I may say an eloquent, objection to 
being what she terms ^ put upon.’ The presence of 
your husband’s cheeses in her house she would, I 
instinctively feel, regard as a ‘put upon;’ and it 
shall never be said that I put upon the widow and 
the orphan.” 

"Very well, then,” said my friend’s wife, rising, 
" all I have to say is, that I shall take the children 
and go to a hotel until those cheeses are eaten. I 
decline to live any longer in the same house with 
them.” 

She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of 
the charwoman, who, when asked if she could stand 
the smell, replied "What smell?” and who, when 
taken close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard, 
said she could detect a faint odor of melons. It 
.46 " 


Three Men in a Boat. 


was argued from this that little injury could result 
to the woman from the atmosphere, and she was 
left. 

The hotel bill came to fifteen guineas; and my 
friend, after reckoning everything up, found that 
the cheeses had cost him eight-and-sixpence a pound. 
He said he dearly loved a bit of cheese, but it was 
beyond his means; so he determined to get rid of 
them. He threw them into the canal ; but had to 
fish them out again, as the bargemen complained. 
They said it made them feel quite faint. And, 
after that, he took them one dark night and left 
them in the parish mortuary. But the coroner dis- 
covered them, and made a fearful fuss. 

He said it was a plot to deprive him of his living 
by waking up the corpses. 

My friend got rid of them at last, by taking them 
down to a sea-side town, and burying them on the 
beach. It gained the place quite a reputation. 
Visitors said they had never noticed before how 
strong the air was, and weak-chested and consump- 
tive people used to throng there for years afterward. 

Fond as I am of cheese, therefore, I hold that 
George was right in declining to take any. 

We shan’t want any tea,’’ said George (Harris’ 
face fell at this); ‘‘but we’ll have a good, round, 
square, slap-up meal at seven — dinner, tea, and sup- 
per combined.” 

Harris grew more cheerful. George suggested 
meat and fruit pies, cold meat, tomatoes, fruit, and 

47 


Three Men in a Boat. 


green stuff. For drink we took some wonderful 
sticky concoction of Harris’, which you mixed with 
water and called lemonade, plenty of tea, and a 
bottle of whiskey, in case, as George said, we got 
upset. 

It seemed to me that George harped too much on 
the getting-upset idea. It seemed to me the wrong 
spirit to go about the trip in. 

But I’m glad we took the whiskey. 

We didn’t take beer or wine. They are a mistake 
up the river. They make you feel sleepy and heavy. 
A glass in the evening when you are doing a mouch 
round the town and looking at the girls is all right 
enough; but don’t drink when the sun is blazing 
down on your head, and you’ve got hard work 
to do. 

We made a list of the things to be taken, and a 
pretty lengthy one it was, before we parted that 
evening. The next day, which was Friday, we got 
them all altogether, and met in the evening to pack. 
We got a big Gladstone for the clothes, and a 
couple of hampers for the victuals and the cooking 
utensils. We moved the table up against the 
window, piled everything in a heap in the middle of 
the floor, and sat round and looked at it. I said I’d 
pack. 

I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is 
one of those many things that I feel I know more 
about than any other person living. (It surprises 
me myself, sometimes, how many of these subjects 
48 


Three Men in a Boat. 




there are.) I impressed the fact upon George and 
Harris, and told them they had better leave the 
whole matter entirely to me. They fell into the sug- 
gestion with a readiness that had something uncanny 
about it, George put on a pipe and spread himself 
over the easy-chair, and Harris cocked his legs on 
the table and lighted a cigar. 

This was hardly what I intended. What I had 
meant, of course, was that I should boss the job, and 
that Harris and George should potter about under 
my directions, I pushing them aside every now and 

then with, ‘‘ Oh, you 1 “ Here, let me do it.^' 

There you are, simple enough I — really teaching 
them, as you might say. Their taking it in the way 
they did irritated me. There is nothing does irritate 
me more than seeing other people sitting about doing 
nothing when I’m working. 

I lived with a man once who used to make me 
mad that way. He would loll on the sofa and watch 
me doing things by the hour together, following me 
round the room with his eyes, wherever I went. He 
said it did him real good to look on at me messing 
about. He said it made him feel that life was not 
an idle dream to be gaped and yawned through, but 
a noble task, full of duty and stern work. He said 
he often wondered now how he could have gone on 
before he met me, never having anybody to look at 
while they worked. 

Now, I’m not like that. I can’t sit still and see 
another man slaving and working. I want to get up 
4 49 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and superintend, and walk round with my hands in 
my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my 
energetic nature. I can’t help it. 

However, I did not say anything, but started the 
packing. It seemed a longer job than I had thought 
it was going to be; but I got the bag finished at last, 
and I sat on it and strapped it. 

Ain’t you going to put the boots in?” said 
Harris. 

And I looked round, and found I had forgotten 

them. That’s just like Harris. He couldn’t have 
said a word until I’d got the bag shut and strapped, 
of course. And George laughed— one of those irri- 
tating, senseless, chuckle-headed, crack-jawed laughs 
of his. They do make me so wild. 

I opened the bag and packed the boots in; and 

then, just as I was going to close it, a horrible idea 
occurred to me. Had I packed my tooth-brush ? I 
don’t know how it is, but I never do know whether 
I’ve packed my tooth-brush. 

My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when 
I’m traveling, and makes my life a misery. I dream 
that I haven’t packed it, and wake up in a cold 
perspiration, and get out of bed and hunt for it. 
And, in the morning, I pack it before I have used it, 
and have to unpack again to get it, and it is always 
the last thing I turn out of the bag; and then I 
repack and forget it, and have to rush up-stairs for 
it at the last moment and carry it to the railway 
station wrapped up in my pocket handkerchief. 
fiO 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Of course I had to turn every mortal thing out 
now, and, of course, I could not find it. I rummaged 
the things up into much the same state that they 
must have been before the world was created, and 
when chaos reigned. Of course, I found George’s 
and Harris’ eighteen times over, but I couldn’t find 
my own. I put the things back one by one, and 
held everything up and shook it. Then I found it 
inside a boot. I repacked once more. 

When I had finished, George asked if the soap 
was in. I said I didn’t care a hang whether the 
soap was in or whether it wasn’t; and I slammed 
the bag to and strapped it, and found that I had 
packed my tobacco pouch in it and had to reopen 
it. It got shut up finally at 10.05 P. M., and then 
there remained the hampers to do. Harris said that 
we should be wanting to start in less than twelve 
hours’ time, and thought that he and George had 
better do the rest ; and I agreed and sat down, and 
they had a go. 

They began in a light-hearted spirit, evidently in- 
tending to show me how to do it. I made no com- 
ment; I only waited. When George is hanged, 
Harris will be the worst packer in this world ; and 
I looked at the piles of plates and cups, and kettles, 
and bottles, and jars, and pies, and stoves, and 
cakes, and tomatoes, etc., and felt that the thing 
would soon become exciting. 

It did. They started with breaking a cup. That 
was the first thing they did. They did that just to 
51 




Three Men in a Boat. 


show you what they could do, and to get you inter* 
ested. 

Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of 
a tomato and squashed it, and they had to pick out 
the tomato with a teaspoon. 

And then it was George’s turn, and he trod on 
the butter. I didn’t say anything, but I came over 
and sat on the edge of the table and watched them. 
It irritated them more than anything I could have 
said. I felt that. It made them nervous and excited, 
and they stepped on things, and put things behind 
them, and then couldn’t find them when they wanted 
them ; and they packed the pies at the bottom, and 
put heavy things on top, and smashed the pies in. 

They upset salt over everything, and as for the 
butter I I never saw two men do more with one 
and twopence worth of butter in my whole life than 
they did. After George had got it off his slipper, 
they tried to put it in the kettle. It wouldn’t go in, 
and what wo9 in wouldn’t come out! They did 
scrape it out at last, and put it down on a chair, and 
Harris sat on it, and it stuck to him, and they went 
looking for it all over the room. 

" I’ll take my oath I put it down on that chair,” 
said George, staring at the empty seat. 

I saw you do it myself, not a minute ago,” said 
Harris. 

Then they started round the room again looking 
for it; and then they met again in the center and 
stared at each other. 


52 


Three Men in a Boat. 


" Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of/^ said 
Gteorge. 

So mysterious I ” said Harris. 

Then George got round at the back of Harris ana 
saw it. 

“Why, here it is all the time,^' he exclaimed 
indignantly. 

“Where?’' cried Harris, spinning round. 

“Stand still, can’t you?” roared George, flying 
after him. 

And they got it oflf, and packed it in a teapot. 

Montmorency was in it all, of course. Mont- 
morency’s ambition in life is to get in the way and 
be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where 
he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nui- 
sance, and make people mad, and have things thrown 
at his head, then he feels his day has not been 
wasted. 

To get somebody to stumble over him, and 
curse him steadily for an hour, is his highest 
aim and object; and, when he has succeeded in 
accomplishing this, his conceit becomes quite un- 
bearable. 

He came and sat down on things, just when they 
were wanted to be packed; and he labored under 
the fixed belief that, whenever Harris or George 
reached out their hand for anything, it was his cold, 
damp nose that they wanted. He put his leg into 
the jam, and he worried the teaspoons, and he pre- 
tended that the lemons were rats, and got into the 
53 


Three Men in a Boat. 


hamper and killed three of them before Harris could 
land him with the frying-pan. 

Harris said I encouraged him. I didn’t encourage 
him. A dog like that don’t want any encourage- 
ment. It’s the natural, original sin that is born in 
him that makes him do things like that. 

The packing was done at 12.50 ; and Harris sat on 
the big hamper, and said he hoped nothing would 
be found broken. George said that if anything was 
broken it was broken, which reflection seemed to 
comfort him. He also said he was ready for bed. 
We were all ready for bed. Harris was to sleep with 
us that night, and we went upstairs. 

We tossed our beds, and Harris had to sleep with 
me. He said : 

Do you prefer the inside or the outside, J.?” 

I said I generally preferred to sleep inside a bed. 

Harris said it was odd. 

George said : ‘What time shall I wake you fellows ?’^ 

Harris said : “ Seven.” 

I said : 

“No— six,” because I wanted to write some letters. 

Harris and I had a bit of a row over it, but at last 
split the difference, and said half-past six. 

“Wake us at 6.30, George,” we said. 

George made no answer, and we found, on going 
over, that he had been asleep for some time; so wo 
placed the bath where he could tumble into it on 
getting out in the morning, and went to bed cKur- 
selves. 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER V. 

Mrs. P. arouses us. — George the sluggard. — The “weather fore- 
cast” swindle. — Our luggage. — Depravity of the small boy.— 
The people gather round us. — We drive oflf in great style and 
arrive at Waterloo. — Innocence of South Western OflScials 
concerning such worldly things as trains, — We are afloat, 
afloat in an open boat. 

I T WAS Mrs. Poppets that woke me up next 
morning. 

She said : 

Do you know that it^s nearly nine o’clock, sir ? 
“Nine o’ what?” I cried, starting up. 

“ Nine o’clock,” she replied through the keyhole. 
** I thought you was a-oversleeping yourselves.” 

I woke Harris, and told him. He said : 

“ I thought you wanted to get up at six ? ” 

“So I did,” I answered; “why didn’t you wake 
me?” 

“How could I wake you when you did’nt wake 
me?” he retorted. “Now we shan’t get on the 
water till after twelve. I wonder you take the 
trouble to get up at all.” 

“ Um,” I replied, “ lucky for you that I do. If I 
hadn’t woke you, you’d have lain there for the 
whole fortnight.” 

We snarled at each other in this strain for the 
next few minutes, when we were interrupted by a 
defiant snore from George. It reminded us, for the 
55 


Three Men in a Boat. 


first time since our being called, of his existence. 
There he lay — the man who had wanted to know 
what time he should wake us — on his back, with his 
mouth wide open, and his knees stuck up, 

I donT know why it should be, I am sure ; but the 
sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up 
maddens me. It seems so shocking to see the precious 
hours of a man’s life — the priceless moments that 
will never come back to him again — being wasted in 
mere brutish sleep. 

There was George, throwing away in hideous sloth 
the inestimable gift of time ; his valuable life, every 
second of which he would have to account for here- 
after, passing away from him, unused. He might 
have been up stuffing himself with eggs and bacon, 
irritating the dog, or flirting with the slavey, instead, 
of sprawling there, sunk in soul-clogging oblivion. 

It was a terrible thought, Harris and I appeared 
to be struck by it at the same instant. We deter- 
mined to save him, and, in this noble resolve, our 
own dispute was forgotten. We flew across and slung 
the clothes off him, and Harris landed him one with 
a slipper, and I shouted in his ear, and he awoke. 

" Wasermarrer?’' he observed, sitting up. 

"Get up, you fat-headed chunk I roared Harris. 
" It’s quarter to ten.” 

" What I ” he shrieked, jumping out of bed into 
the bath. " Who the thunder put this thing here ? ” 

We told him he must have been a fool not to see 
the bath. 


56 


Three Men in a Boat. 


We finished dressing, and, when it came to the 
extras, we remembered that we had packed the 
tooth-brushes and the brush and comb (that tooth- 
brush of mine will be the death of me, I know), and 
we had to go downstairs, and fish them out of the 
bag. And when we had done that George wanted 
the shaving tackle. We told him that he would have 
to go without shaving that morning, as we weren’t 
going to unpack that bag again for him, nor for any 
j>ne like him. 

He said : 

Don’t be absurd. How can I go into the City 
like this?’’ 

It was certainly rather rough on the City, but what 
cared we for human suffering ? As Harris said, in his 
common, vulgar way, the City would have to lump it. 

We went downstairs to breakfast. Montmorency 
had invited two other dogs to come and see him ofi 
and they were whiling away the time by fighting on 
the doorstep. We calmed them with an umbrella, 
and sat down to chops and cold beef. 

Harris said: 

'^The great thing is to make a good breakfast,” 
and he started with a couple of chops, saying that 
he would take these while they were hot, as the beef 
could wait. 

George got hold of the paper, and read us out 
the boating fatalities, and the weather forecast, which 
latter prophesied rain, cold, wet to fine ” (whatever 
more than usually ghastly thing in weather that may 
67 


Three Men in a Boat. 


be), “occasional local thunder-storms, east wind, 
with general depression over the Midland Counties 
(London and Channel), “ Bar. falling.’^ 

I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfool- 
ishness by which we are plagued, this “weather- 
forecast’^ fraud is about the most aggravating. It 
“forecasts’’ precisely what happened yesterday or 
the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is 
going to happen to-day. 

I remember a holiday of mine being completely 
ruined one late autumn by our paying attention to 
the weather report of the local newspaper. “ Heavy 
showers, with thunder-storms, may be expected to- 
day,” it would say on Monday, and so we would 
give up our picnic, and stop indoors all day, waiting 
for the rain. And people would pass the house, 
going off in wagonettes and coaches as jolly and 
merry as could be, the sun shining out, and not a 
cloud to be seen. 

“ Ah I ” we said, as we stood looking out at them 
through the window, “ won’t they come home 
soaked ? ” 

And we chuckled to think how wet they were 
going to get, and came back and stirred the fire, 
and got our books, and arranged our specimens of 
seaweed and cockle shells. By twelve o’clock, with 
the sun pouring into the room, the heat became 
quite oppressive, and we wondered when those 
heavy showers and occasional thunder-storms were 
going to begin. 


58 


Three Men in a Boat. 


‘‘ Ah I they’ll come in the afternoon, you’ll find,” 
we said to each other. Oh, won't those people get 
wet ? What a lark I ” 

At one o’clock the landlady would come in to ask if 
we weren’t going out, as it seemed such a lovely day. 

‘^No, no,” we replied, with a knowing chuckle, 
‘‘ not we. We don’t mean to get wet — no, no.” 

And when the afternoon was nearly gone, and 
still there was no sign of rain, we tried to cheer our- 
selves up with the idea that it would come down all 
at once, just as the people had started for home, 
and were out of the reach of any shelter, and that 
they would thus get more drenched than ever. But 
not a drop ever fell, and it finished a grand day, and 
a lovely night after it. 

The next morning we would read that it was 
going to be a ‘‘warm, fine to set-fair day; much 
heat ; ” and we would dress ourselves in flimsy things, 
and go out, and half an hour after we had started it 
would commence to rain hard, and a bitterly cold 
wind would spring up, and both would keep on 
steadily for the whole day, and we would come home 
with colds and rheumatism all over us, and go to bed. 

The weather is a thing that is beyond me alto- 
gether. I never can understand it. The barometer 
is useless: it is as misleading as the newspaper 
forecast. 

There was one hanging up in a hotel at Oxford at 
which I was staying last spring, and when I got 
there it was pointing to “ set fair.” It was simply 
58 


Three Men in a Boat. 


pouring with rain outside, and had been all day; 
and I couldn’t quite make matters out. I tapped 
the barometer, and it jumped and pointed to ^^very 
dry.” The Boots stopped as he was passing and said 
he expected it meant to-morrow. I fancied that 
maybe it was thinking of the week before last, but 
Boots said no, he thought not. 

I tapped it again the next morning, and it went up 
still higher, and the r^' i came down faster than ever. 
On Wednesday I went and hit it again, and the 
pointer went round toward ^'set fair,” ^‘very dry,” 
and much heat,” until it was stopped by the peg 
and couldn’t go any further. It tried its best, but 
the instrument was built so that it couldn’t prophesy 
fine weather any harder than it did without breaking 
itself. It evidently wanted to go on, and prognosti- 
cate drought, and water famine, and sunstroke, and 
simooms, and such things, but the peg prevented it, 
and it had to be content with pointing to the mere 
commonplace “very dry.” 

Meanwhile the rain came down in a steady torrent, 
and the lower part of the town was under water, 
owing to the river having overflowed. 

Boots said it was evident that we were going to 
have a prolonged spell of grand weather some time^ 
and read out a poem which was printed over the top 
of the oracle, about 

“ Long foretold, long last ; 

Short notice, soon past.” 

The fine weather never came that summer. I 
60 


Three Men in a Boat. 


expect that machine must have been referring to the 
following spring. 

Then there are those new styles of barometers, the 
long straight ones. I never can make head or tail 
of those. There is one side for 10 A. M. yesterday, 
and one side for 10 A. M. to-day ; but you canT 
always get there as early as ten, you know. It rises 
or falls for rain and fine, with much or less wind, 
and one end is ^^Nly’^ and the other ‘‘Ely’’ (what’s 
Ely got to do with it?), and if you tap it, it doesn’t 
tell you anything. And you’ve got to correct it to 
sea-level, and reduce it to Fahrenheit, and even then 
I don’t know the answer. 

But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is 
bad enough when it comes, without our having the 
misery of knowing about it beforehand. The 
prophet we like is the old man who, on the particu- 
larly gloomy-looking morning of some day when we 
particularly want it to be fine, looks round the hori- 
zon with a particularly knowing eye, and says : 

“ Oh, no, sir, I think it will clear up all right. It 
will break all right enough, sir.” 

“Ah, he knows,” we say, as we wish him good- 
morning, and start oflT; “wonderful how these old 
fellows can tell I ” 

And we feel an affection for that man which is not 
at all lessened by the circumstances of its not clearing 
up, but continuing to rain steadily all day. 

“Ah, well,” we feel, “he did his best.” 

For the man that prophesies ^us bad weather, on 

61 


Three Men in a Boat 


the contrary, we entertain only hitter and revengeful 
thoughts. 

''Going to clear up, d’ye think we shout 
cheerily, as we pass. 

"Well, no, sir; Tm afraid it^s settled down for 
the day,” he replies, shaking his head. 

"Stupid old fool,” we mutter, "what’s he know 
about it ? ” And, if his portent proves correct, we 
come back feeling still more angry against him, and 
with a vague notion that, somehow or other, he has 
had something to do with it. 

It was too bright and sunny on rms especial 
morning for George’s blood-curdling readings about 
"Bar. falling,” "atmospheric disturbance, passing in 
an oblique line over Southern Europe,” and "pres- 
sure increasing,” to very much upset us; and so, 
finding that he could not make us wretched, and was 
only wasting his time, he sneaked the cigarette that 
I had carefully rolled up for myself, and went. 

Then Harris - and I, having finished up the few 
things left on the table, carted out our luggage on to 
the doorstep, and waited for a cabc 

There seemed a good deal of luggage, when we 
put it all together. There was the Gladstone and 
the small hand-bag, and the two hampers, and a 
large roll of rugs, and some four or five overcoats 
and mackintoshes, and a few umbrellas, and then 
there was a melon by itself in a bag, because it was 
too btilky to go in anywhere, and a dcfaple of pOtfnds 


Three Men in a Boat. 


of grapes in another bag, and a Japanese paper um- 
brella, and a frying-pan, which, being too long to 
pack, he had wrapped round with brown paper. It 
did look a lot, and Harris and I began to feel rather 
ashamed of it, though why we should be, I can’t see. 
No cab came by, but the street boys did, and got 
interested in the show, apparently, and stopped. 

Biggs’ boy was the first to come round. Biggs is 
our green-grocer, and his chief talent lies in securing 
the services of the most abandoned and unprincipled 
errand boys that civilization has as yet produced. If 
anything more than usually villainous in the boy 
line crops up in our neighborhood, we know that it 
is Biggs’ latest. I was told that, at the time of the 
Great Coram Street murder, it was promptly con- 
cluded by our street that Biggs’ boy (for that period) 
was at the bottom of it, and had he not been able, in 
reply to the severe cross-examination to which he 
was subjected by No. 19, when he called there for 
orders the morning after the crime (assisted by No. 
21, who happened to be on the step at the time), to 
prove a complete alibi, it would have gone hard with 
him. I didn’t know Biggs’ boy at that time, but 
from what I have seen of him since, I should not 
have attached much importance to that alibi myself. 

Biggs’ boy, as I have said, came round the corner. 
He was evidently in a great hurry when he first 
dawned upon the vision, but on catching sight of 
Harris and me, and Montmorency, and the things, 
he eased up and stared. Harris and I frowned at 
68 


Three Men in a Boat. 


him. This might have wounded a more sensitive 
nature, but Biggs' boys are not, as a rule, touchy. 
He came to a dead stop, a yard from our step, and 
leaning up against the railings, and selecting a straw 
to chew, fixed us with his eye. He evidently meant 
to see this thing out. 

In another moment, the grocer's boy passed on the 
opposite side of the street. Biggs' boy hailed him. 

Hi I ground floor o' 42's a-moving.’' 

The grocer's boy came across, and took up a posi- 
tion on the other side of the step. Then the young 
gentleman from the boot-shop stopped, and joined 
Biggs' boy; when the empty-can superintendent 
from “The Blue Posts" took up an independent 
position on the curb. 

“ They ain't a-going to starve, are they ? " said the 
gentleman from the boot-shop. 

“Ah ! you'd want to take a thing or two with yow," 
retorted “ The Blue Posts," “ if you was a-going to 
cross the Atlantic in a small boat." 

“ They ain't a-going to cross the Atlantic," struck 
in Biggs' boy ; “ they’re a-going to find Stanley." 

By this time quite a small crowd had collected, 
and people were asking each other what was the 
matter. One party (the young and giddy portion 
of the crowd) held that it was a wedding, and 
pointed out Harris as the bridegroom; while the 
elder and more thoughtful among the populace in- 
clined to the idea that it was a funeral, and that I 
was probably the corpse's brother. 

64 


Three Men in a Boat. 


At last an empty cab turned up (it is a street 
where, as a rule, and when they are not wanted, 
empty cabs pass at the rate of three a minute, and 
hang about, and get in your way), and packing our- 
selves and our belongings into it, and shooting out 
a couple of Montmorency’s friends, who had evi- 
dently sworn never to forsake him, we drove away 
mid the cheers of the crowd, Biggs’ boy shying a 
carrot after us for luck. 

We got to Waterloo at eleven, and asked where 
the eleven-five started from. Of ccume, nobody 
knew; nobody at Waterloo ever does know where 
a train is going to start from, or where a train when 
it does start is going to, or anything about it. The 
porter who took our things thought it would go from 
number two platform, while another porter, with 
whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumor 
that it would go from number one. The station- 
master, on the other hand, was convinced it would 
start from the local. 

To put an end to the matter, we went upstairs, 
and asked the traffic superintendent, and he told us 
that he had just met a man, who said he had seen 
it at number three platform. We went to number 
three platform, but the authorities there said that 
they rather thought that train was the Southampton 
express, or else the Windsor loop. But they were 
sure it wasn’t the Kingston train, though why they 
were sure it wasn’t they couldn’t say. 

Then our porter said he thought that must be it 

6 65 


Three Men in a Boat. 


on the high-level platform; said he thought he 
knew the train. So we went to the high-level 
platform, and saw the engine-driver, and asked 
him if he was going to Kingston. He said he 
couldn’t say for certain, of course, but that he rather 
thought he was. Anyhow, if he wasn’t the 11.05 
for Kingston, he said he was pretty confident he 
was the 9.32 for A^rginia Water, or the ten A. M. 
express for the Isle of Wight, or somewhere in that 
direction, and we should all know when we got there. 
We slipped half a crown into his hand, and begged 
him to be the 11.05 for Kingston. 

Nobody will ever know on this line,” we said, 
^^what you are, or where you’re going. You know 
the way, you slip off quietly and go to Kingston,” 

‘'Well, I don’t know, gents,” replied the noble 
fellow, “but I suppose some train’s got to go to 
Kingston ; and I’ll do it. Gimme the half crown.’' 

Thus we got to Kingston by the London and 
Southwestern Kailway. 

We learned afterward that the train we had come 
by was really the Exeter mail, and that they had 
spent hours at Waterloo looking for it, and nobody 
knew what had become of it. 

Our boat was v/aiting for us at Kingston just 
below the bridge, and to it we wended our way, and 
round it we stored our luggage, and into it we 
stepped. 

“Are you all right, sir?” said the man. 

“Right it is,” we answered; and with Harris at 
66 


Three Men in a Boat. 


the sculls and I at the tiller-lines, and Montmorency, 
unhappy and deeply suspicious, in the prow, out we 
shot on to the waters, which for a fortnight were to 
be our home. 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHABTEB VI. 

Kingston. —Instructive remarks on earlj English history. — In- 
structive observations on carved oak and life in general. — 
Sad case of Sti wings, junior. — Musings on antiquity.— I forget 
that I am steering. — Interesting result. — Hampton Court Maze. 
—Harris as a guide. 

I T was a glorious morning, late spring or early sum- 
mer, as you care to take it, when the dainty 
sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green ; 
and the year seems like a fair young maid, trembling 
with strange, wakening pulses on the brink of 
womanhood. 

The quaint back streets of Kingston, where they 
came down to the water’s edge, looked quite pictur- 
esque in the flashing sunlight, the glinting river with 
its drifting barges, the wooded towpath, the trim-kept 
villas on the other side, Harris, in a red and orange 
blazer, grunting away at the sculls, the distant 
glimpses of the gray old palace of the Tudors, all 
made a sunny picture, so bright but calm, so full of 
life, and yet so peaceful, that, early in the day though 
it was, I felt myself being dreamily lulled ofl* into a 
Dausing fit. 

I mused on Kingston, or “ Kyningestiyi,’^ as it 
was once called in the days when Saxon “ kinges 
were crowned there. Great Caesar crossed the river 
there, and the Eoman legions camped upon its slop- 

68 


Three Men in a Boat. 


ing upiauafe. Cae?fii, like, in later years, Elizabeth, 
seems to have stopped everywhere; only he was 
more respectable than good Queen Bess; he didn’t 
put up at the public-houses. 

She was nuts on public-houses, was England’s 
virgin queen. There’s scarcely a pub. of any attrac- 
tions within ten miles of London that she does not 
ieem to have looked in at, or stopped at, or slept at, 
some time or other. I wonder now, supposing Harris, 
say, turned over a new leaf, and became a great and 
good man, and got to be prime minister, and died, 
if they would put up signs over the puhlic-houses 
that he had patronized : Harris had a glass of bitter 

in this house ; ” Harris had two of Scotch cold here 
in the summer of ’88 ; ” Harris was chucked from 
here in December, 1886.” 

No, there would be too many of them I It would 
be the houses that he had never entered that would 
become famous. “ Only hou^e in South London that 
Harris never had a drink in!” The people would 
flock to it to see what could have been the matter 
with it. 

How poor weak-minded King Edwy must have 
hated Kyningestun I The coronation feast had been 
too much for him. Maybe boar’s head stuffed with 
sugar-plums did not agree with him (it wouldn’t with 
me, I know), and he had had enough of sack and 
mead ; so he slipped from the noisy revel to steal a 
quiet moonlight hour with his beloved Elgiva. 

Perhaps, from the casement, standing hand in 


I'hree Men in a Boat. 


hand, they were watching the calm moonlight on the 
river, while from the distant halls the boisterous 
revelry floated in broken bursts of faint-heard din 
and tumult. 

Then brutal Odo and St. Dunstan force their rude 
way into the quiet room, and hurl coarse insults at 
the sweet-faced queen, and drag poor Edwy back to 
the loud clamor of the drunken brawl. 

Years later, to the crash of battle-music, Saxon 
kings and Saxon revelry were buried side by side, 
and Kingston’s greatness passed away for a time, to 
rise once more when Hampton Court became a 
palace cf the Tudors and the Stuarts, and the royal 
barges strained at their moorings on the river’s bank, 
and bright-cloaked gallants swaggered down the 
water-steps to cry: “What ferry, hoi Gadzooks, 
gramercy I ” 

Many of the old houses round about speak very 
plainly of those days when Kingston was a royal 
borough, and nobles and courtiers lived there, near 
their king, and the long road to the palace gates 
was gay all day with clanking steel and prancing 
palfreys, and rustling silks and velvets, and fair 
faces. The large and spacious houses, with their 
iel, latticed windows, their huge fireplaces, and 
V ir gabled roofs, breathe of the days of hose and 
sublet, of pearl-embroidered stomachers, and com- 
f>liv;ated oaths. They were upraised in the days 
“ when men knew how to build.” The hard red 
bricks have only grown more firmly set with time. 
70 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and their oak stairs do not creak and grunt when 
you try to go down them quietly. 

Speaking of oak staircases reminds me that there 
is a magnificent carved oak staircase in one of the 
houses in Kingston. It is a shop now, in the market- 
place, but it was evidently once the mansion of some 
great personage. A friend of mine, who lives at 
Kingston, went in there to buy a hat one day, and, 
in a thoughtless moment, put his hand in his pocket 
and paid for it then and there. 

The shopman (he knows my friend) was naturally 
a little staggered at first; but quickly recovering 
himself, and feeling that something ought to be done 
to encourage this sort of thing, asked our hero if he 
would like to see some fine old carved oak. My 
friend said he would; and the shopman thereupon 
took him through tne shop, and up the staircase of 
the house. The balusters were a superb piece ol: 
workmanship, and the wall all the way up was oak- 
paneled, with carving that would have done credit 
to a palace. From the stairs they went into the 
drawing-room, which was a large, bright room, dec- 
orated with a somewhat startling though cheerful 
paper of a blue ground. There was nothing, how- 
ever, remarkable about the apartment, and my friend 
wondered why he had been brought there. The 
proprietor went up to the paper, and tapped it. It 
gave forth a wooden sound. 

‘‘Oak,” he explained. “All carved oak, right up to 
the ceiling, just the same as you saw on the staircas<^ ” 
71 


Three Men in a Boat. 


“But, great Caesar! man,’’ expostulated my friend; 
“you don’t mean to say you have covered over oak 
with blue wall-paper? ” 

“Yes,” was the reply; “it was expensive work. 
Had to match-board it all over first, of course. But 
the room looks cheerful now. It was awful gloomy 
before.” 

I can’t say I altogether blame the man (which is 
doubtless a great relief to his mind). From his point 
of view, which would be that of the average house- 
holder, desiring to take life as lightly as possible, and 
pot that of the old curiosity-shop maniac, there is 
reason on his side. Carved oak is very pleasant to 
look at, and to have a little of, but it is no doubt 
somewhat depressing to live in, for those whose fancy 
does not lie that way. It would be like living in a 
church. 

No, what was sad in his case was that he, who 
didn’t care for carved oak, should have his drawing- 
room paneled with it, while people who do care for it 
have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to 
be the rule of this world. Each person has what he 
doesn’t want, and other people have what he does 
want. 

Married men have wives, and don’t seem to want 
them; and young single fellows cry out that they 
can’t get them. Poor people who can hardly keep 
themselves have eight hearty children. Kich old 
couples, with no one to leave their money to, die 
childless. 


72 


lliree Men in a Boat. 


Then there are girls with lovers. The girls that 
have lovers never want them. They say they would 
rather be without them, that they bother them, and 
why don’t they go and make love to Miss Smith 
and Miss Brown, who are plain and elderly, and 
haven't got any lovers? They themselves don^t 
want lovers. They never mean to marry. 

It does not do to dwell on these things ; it makes 
one so sad. 

There was a boy at our school, we used to call 
him Sandford and Merton. His real name was 
Stivvings. He was the most extraordinary lad I 
ever came across. I believe he really liked study. 
He used to get into awful rows for sitting up in bed 
and reading Greek; and as for French irregular 
verbs there was simply no keeping him away from 
iiem. He was fall of weird and unnatural notions 
about being a credit to his parents and an honor to 
the school ; and he yearned to win prizes, and grow 
up and be a clever man, and had all those sorts of 
weak-minded ideas. I never knew such a strange 
creature, yet harmless, mind you, as the babe unborn. 

Well, that boy used to get ill about twice a week, 
so that he couldn^t go to school. There never was 
such a boy to get ill as that Sandford and Merton. 
If there was any known disease going within ten 
miles of him, he had it and had it badly. He 
would take bronchitis in the dog-days, and have hay 
fever at Christmas. After a six weeks’ period of 
drought, he would be stricken down v/ith rheumatic 
73 


Three Men in a Boat. 


fever; and he would go out in a November fog and 
come home with a sunstroke. 

They put him under laughing-gas one year, poor 
lad, and drew all his teeth, and gave him a false set, 
because he suffered so terribly with toothache ; and 
then it turned to neuralgia and earache. He was 
never without a cold, except once for nine weeks 
while he had scarlet fever ; and he always had chil- 
blains. During the great cholera scare of 1871, our 
neighborhood was singularly free from it. There 
was only one reputed case in the whole parish : that 
case was young Stivvings. 

He had to stop in bed when he was ill, and eat 
chicken and custards and hot-house grapes ; and he 
would lie there and sob, because they wouldnT let 
him do Latin exercises, and took his German gram- 
mar away from him. 

And we other boys, who would have sacrificed 
ten terms of our school life for the sake of being ill 
for a day, and had no desire whatever to give our 
parents any excuse for being stuck-up about us, 
couldn’t catch so much as a stiff neck. We fooled 
about in draughts, and it did us good, and freshened 
us up; and we took things to make us sick, and 
they made us fat, and gave us an appetite. Noth- 
ing we could think of seemed to make us ill until 
the holidays began. Then, on the breaking-up day, 
we caught colds, and whooping-cough, and all kinds 
of disorders, which lasted till the term recommenced; 
when, in spite of everything we could maneuver 
74 


Three Men in a Boat. 


the contrary, we would get suddenly well again and 
be better than ever. 

Such is life ; and we are but as grass that is cut 
down, and put into the oven and baked. 

To go back to the carved-oak question they must 
have had very fair notions of the artistic and the 
beautiful, our great-great-grandfathers. Why, all 
our art treasures of to-day are only the dug-up com- 
monplaces of three or four hundred years ago. I 
wonder if there is real intrinsic beauty in the old 
soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers that we 
prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glow- 
ing around them that gives them their charms in 
our eyes. The old blue ” that we hang about our 
walls as ornaments were the common everyday 
household utensils of a few centuries ago , and the 
pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that 
we hand round now for all our friends to gush over, 
and pretend they understand, were the unvalued 
mantel ornaments that the mother of the eighteenth 
century would have given the baby to suck when he 
cried. 

Will it be the same in the future ? Will the prized 
treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the 
day before ? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner- 
plates be ranged above the chimney-pieces of the 
great in the years 2000 and odd ? Will the white 
cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower 
inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now 
break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be care- 
76 


Three Men in a Boat. 


fully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted 
only by the lady of the bouse ? 

That china dog that ornaments the bedroom of 
my furnished lodgings. It is a white dog. Its 
eyes are blue. Its nose is a delicate red, with black 
spots. Its head is painfully erect, and its expression 
is amiability carried to the verge of imbecility. I do 
not admire it myself. Considered as a work of art, 
I may say it irritates me. Thoughtless friends jeer 
at it, and even my landlady herself has no admira- 
tion for it, and excuses its presence by the circum- 
stance that her aunt gave it to her. 

But in two hundred years’ time it is more than 
probable that that dog will be dug up from some- 
where or other, minus its legs, and with its tail 
broken, and will be sold for old china, and put in a 
glass cabinet. And people will pass it round, and 
admire it. They will be struck by the wonderful 
depth of the color on the nose, and speculate as to 
how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no 
doubt was. 

We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that 
dog. We are too familiar with it. It is like the 
sunset and the stars: we are not awed by their 
loveliness because they are common to our eyes. 
So it is with that china dog. In 2288 people will 
gush over it. The making of such dogs will have 
become a lost art. Our descendants will wonder 
how we did it, and say how clever we were. We 
shall be referred to lovingly as those grand old 

75 


Three Men in a Boat. 


artists that flourished in the nineteenth century, and 
produced those china dogs,’' 

The ‘‘sampler” that the oldest daughter did at 
school will be spoken of as “ tapestry of the Victo- 
rian era,” and be also priceless. The blue-and-white 
mugs of the present day road-side inn will be hunted 
up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight 
in gold, and rich people will use them for claret 
cups; and travelers from Japan will buy up all the 
“Presents from Eamsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Mar- 
gate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take 
them back to Jedo as ancient English curios. 

At this point Harris threw away the sculls, got 
up and left his seat, and sat on his back, and stuck 
his legs in the air. Montmorency howled, and turned 
a somersault, and the top hamper jumped up, a^^d all 
the things came out. 

I was somewhat surprised, but I did not lose my 
temper. I said, pleasantly enough : 

“Halloo! what’s that for?” 

“ What’s that for? Why ” 

No, on second thoughts, I will not repeat what 
Harris said. I may have been to blame, I admit it ; 
but nothing excuses violence of language and coarse- 
ness of expression, especially in a man r "^as been 
carefully brought up, as I know Harris has been. I 
was thinking of other things, and forgot, as any one 
might easily understand, that I was steering, and the 
consequence was that we had got mixed up a good 
77 


Three Men in a Boat. 


deal with the tow-path. It was difficult to say, for 
the moment, which was us and which was the Mid- 
dlesex bank of the river; but we found out after 
awhile, and separated ourselves. 

Harris, however, said he had done enough for a 
bit, and proposed that I should take a turn ; so, as 
we were in, I got out and took the tow-line, and ran 
the boat on past Hampton Court. What a dear old 
wall that is that runs along by the river there I I 
never pass it without feeling better for the sight of 
it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall ; what a 
charming picture it would make, with the lichen 
creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy 
young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see 
what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober 
old ivy clustering a little further down. There are 
fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of 
that old wall. If I could only draw, and knew how 
to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of that old 
wall, I’m sure. I’ve often thought I should like to 
live at Hampton Court. It looks so peaceful and 
so quiet, and is such a dear old place to ramble 
round in the early morning before many people are 
about. 

But there, I don’t suppose I should really care for 
it when it came to actual practice. It would be so 
ghastly dull and depressing in the evening when your 
lamp cast uncanny shadows on the paneled walls, 
and the echo of distant feet rang through the cold 
stone corridors, and now drew nearer, and now died 
78 


Three Men in a Boat. 


away, and all was deathlike silence, save the beating 
of one’s own heart. 

We are creatures of tfie sun, we men ana women. 
We love light and life. That is why we crowd into 
the towns and cities, and the country grows more 
and more deserted every year. In the sunlight — 
in the daytime, when Nature is alive and busy all 
around us, we like the open hillsides and the deep 
woods well enough: but in the night, when our 
Mother Earth has gone to sleep, and left us waking, 
oh I the world seems so lonesome, and we get 
frightened, like children in a silent house. Then we 
sit and sob and long for the gas-lit streets, and the 
sound of human voices, and the answering throb of 
human life. We feel so helpless and so little in the 
great stillness, when the dark trees rustle in the 
night wind. There are so many ghosts about, and 
their silent sighs make us feel so sad. Let us gather 
together in the great cities, and light huge bonfires 
of a million gas jets, and shout and sing together, 
and feel brave. 

Harris asked me if I’d ever been in the maze at 
Hampton Court. He said he went in once to show 
somebody else the way. He had studied it up in a 
map, and it was so simple that it seemed foolish — 
hardly worth the twopence charged for admission. 
Harris said he thought that map must have been 
got up as a practical joke, because it wasn’t a 
bit like the real thing, and only misleading. It 
79 


Three Men in a Boat. 


was a country cousin that Harris took in. He 
said : 

We^ll just go in there, so that you can say youVe 
been, but it’s very simple. It’s absurd to call it a 
maze. You keep on taking the first turning to the 
right. We’ll just walk round for ten minutes, and 
then go and get some lunch.” 

They met some people soon after they had got 
inside, who said they had been there for three- 
quarters of an hour, and had had about enough of it. 
Harris told them they could follow him, if they 
liked ; he was just going in, and then should turn 
round and come out again. They said it was very 
kind of him, and fell behind and followed. 

They picked up various other people who wanted 
to get it over, as they went along, until they had 
absorbed all the persons in the maze. People who 
had given up all hopes of ever getting either in or 
out, or of ever seeing their home and friends again, 
plucked up courage at the sight of Harris and his 
party, and joined the procession, blessing him. 
Harris said he should judge there must have been 
twenty people following him, in all ; and one 
woman with a baby, who had been there all the 
morning, insisted on taking his arm, for fear of 
losing him. 

Harris kept on turning to the right, but it seemed 
a long way, and his cousin said he supposed it was 
a very big maze. 

Oh, one of the largest in Europe,” said Harris. 

8 


Three Men in a Boat. 


^^Yes, it must be/’ replied the cousin, '^because 
we’ve walked a good two miles already.” 

Harris began to think it rather strange himself, 
but he held on until, at last, they passed the half of a 
penny bun on the ground that Harris’ cousin swore 
he had noticed there' seven minutes ago. Harris 
said : Oh, impossible I ” but the woman with the baby 

said, Not at all,” as she herself had taken it from 
the child, and thrown it down there, just before she 
met Harris. She also added that she wished she 
never had met Harris, and expressed an opinion that 
he was an impostor. That made Harris mad, and 
he produced his map, and explained his theory. 

The map may be all right enough,” said one of 
the party, if you know whereabouts in it we are 
now.” 

Harris didn’t know, and suggested that the best 
thing to do would be to go back to the entrance, and 
begin again. For the beginning again part of it 
there was not much enthusiasm ; but with regard to 
the advisability of going back to the entrance there 
was complete unanimity, and so they turned, and 
trailed after Harris again, in the opposite direction. 
About ten minutes more passed, and then they found 
themselves in the center. 

Harris thought at first of pretending that that was 
what he had been aiming at ; but the crowd looked 
dangerous, and he decided to treat it as an accident. 

Anyhow, they had got something to start from 
then. They did know where they were and the map 
6 81 


Three Men in a Boat 


was once more consulted, and the thing seemed 
simpler than ever, and off they started for the third 
time. 

And three minutes later they were back in the 
centre again. 

After that they simply couldnft get anywhere else. 
Whatever way they turned brought them back to 
the middle. It became so regular at length, that 
some of the people stopped there, and waited for the 
others to take a walk round, and come back to them. 
Harris drew out his map again, after awhile, but the 
sight of it only inftiriated the mob, and they told 
him to go and curl his hair with it. Harris said 
that he couldn’t help feeling that, to a certain extent, 
he had become unpopular. 

They all got crazy at last, and sung out for the 
keeper, and the man came and climbed up the 
ladder outside, and shouted out directions to them. 
But all their heads were, by this time, in such a 
confused whirl that they were incapable of grasping 
anything, and so the man told them to stop where 
they were, and he would come to them. They 
huddled together and waited ; and he climbed down, 
and came in. 

He was a young keeper, as luck would have it, 
and new to the business; and when he got in, he 
couldn’t find them, and he wandered about, trying 
to get to them, and then he got lost. They caught 
sight of him, every now and then, rushing about 
the other side of the hedge, and he would see them, 
82 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and rush to get to them, and they would wait there 
for about five minutes, and then he would reappear 
again in exactly the same spot, and ask them where 
they had been. 

They had to wait till one of the old keepers came 
back from his dinner before they got out. 

Harris said he thought it was a very fine maze, so 
far as he was a judge ; and we agreed that we would 
try to get George to go into it, on our way back. 


S3 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER VII. 

The river in its Sunday garb.— Dress on the river. — A chance for 
the men.— Absence of taste in Harris.— George’s blazer.— 
A day with the fashion-plate young lady. — Mrs. Thomas’ 
tomb.— The man who loves not graves and coffins and skulls.— 
Harris mad.— His views on George and Banks and lemonade.— 
He performs tricks. 

I T WAS while passing through Moulsey Lock that 
Harris told me about his maze experience. It 
took us some time to pass through as we were the 
only boat, and it is a big lock. I don^t think I ever 
remember to have seen Moulsey Lock before with 
only one boat in it. It is, I suppose Boulter’s not 
even excepted, the busiest lock on the river. 

I have stood and watched it sometimes when you 
could not see any water at all, but only a brilliant 
tangle of bright blazers, and gay caps, and saucy 
hats, and many colored parasols, and silken rugs, 
and cloaks, and streaming ribbons, and dainty 
whites ; when looking down into the lock from the 
quay, you might fancy it was a huge box into which 
flowers of every hue and shade had been thrown 
pell-mell, and lay piled up in a rainbow heap, that 
covered every corner. 

On a fine Sunday it presents this appearance 
nearly all day long, while up the stream, and down 
the stream, lie, waiting their turn, outside the gates, 
long lines of still more boats ; and boats are drawing 
84 


Three Men in a Boat. 


near and passing away, so that the sunny river, from 
the Palace up to Hampton Church, is dotted and 
decked with yellow, and blue, and orange, and white, 
and red, and pink. All the inhabitants of Hampton 
and Moulsey dress themselves up in boating costume, 
and come and mouch round the lock with their dogs, 
and flirt, and smoke, and watch the boats ; and, alto- 
gether, what with the caps and jackets of the men, 
the pretty colored dresses of the women, the excited 
dogs, the moving boats, the white sails, the pleasant 
landscape, and the sparkling water, it is one of the 
gayest sights I know of near this dull old London 
town. 

The river affords a good opportunity for dress. For 
once in a way, we men are able to show our taste in 
colors, and I think we come out very natty, if you 
ask me. I always like a little red in my things — red 
and black. You know my hair is a sort of golden 
brown, rather a pretty shade IVe been told, and a 
dark-red matches it beautifully ; and then I always 
think a light-blue necktie goes so well with it, and a 
pair of those Eussian-leather shoes and a red silk 
handkerchief round the waist — a handkerchief looks 
so much better than a belt. 

Harris always keeps to shades or mixtures of 
orange or yellow, but I don’t think he is at all wise 
in this. His complexion is too dark for yellows. 
Yellows don’t suit him; there can be no question 
about it. I want him to take to blue as a back- 
ground, with white or cream for relief ; but. there ! 

85 


Tlir<^p Men in a Boat. 


the less taste a person has in dress, the mere obsti- 
nate he always seems to be. It is a great pity, 
because he will never be a success as it is, while 
there are one or two colors in which he might not 
really look so bad, with his hat on. 

George has bought some new things for this trip, 
and I^m rather vexed about them. The blazer is 
loud. I should not like George to know that I 
thought so, but there really is no other word for it. 
He brought it home and showed it to us on Thursday 
evening. We asked him what color he called it, and 
he said he didn’t know. He didn’t think there was 
a name for the color. The man had told him it was 
an Oriental design. George put it on, and asked us 
what we thought of it. Harris said that, as an object 
to hang over a flower-bed in early spring to frighten 
the birds away, he should respect it ; but that, con- 
sidered as an article of dress for any human being, 
except a Margate nigger, it made him ill. George 
got quite hufly ; but, as Harris said, if he didn’t want 
his opinion, why did he ask for it ? 

What troubles Harris and myself, with regard to 
it, is that we are afraid it will attract attention to the 
boat. 

Girls also don’t look half bad in a boat, if prettily 
dressed. Nothing is more fetching, to my thinking, 
than a tasteful boating costume. But a “boating 
costume,” it would be as well if all ladies would 
understand, ought to be a costume that can be worn 
in a boat, and not merely under a glass case. It 
S6 


Three Men in a Boat. 


utterly spoils an excursion if you have folk in the 
boat who are thinking all the time a good deal more 
of their dress than of the trip. It w^as my misfortune 
once to go for a water picnic with two ladies of this 
kind. We did have a lively time. 

They were both beautifully got up — all lace aud 
silky stuff, and flowers, and ribbons, and dainty 
shoes, and light gloves. But they were dressed for 
a photographic studio, not for a river picnic. They 
were the “ boating costumes ’’ of a French fashion- 
plate. It was ridiculous, fooling about in them any- 
where near real earth, air, and water. 

The first thing was that they thought the boat was 
not clean. We dusted all the seats for them, and 
then assured them that it was, but they didn’t 
believe us. One of them rubbed the cushion with 
the forefinger of her glove, and showed the result to 
the other, and they both sighed, and sat down, with 
the air of early Christian martyrs trying to make 
themselves comfortable up against the stake. You 
are liable to occasionally splash a little when scull- 
ing, and it appeared that a drop of water ruined 
those costumes. The mark never came out, and a 
stain was left on the dress forever. 

I was stroke. I did my best. I feathered some 
two feet high, and I paused at the end of each 
stroke to let the blades drip before returning them, 
and I picked out a smooth bit of water to drop them 
into again each time. (Bow said, after awhile, that 
he did not feel himself a sufficiently accomplished 
87 


Three Men in a Boat. 


oarsman io pull with me, but that he would sit still 
if I would allow him, and study my stroke. He said 
it interested him.) But notwithstanding all this, and 
try as I would, I could not help an occasional flicker 
of water from going over those dresses. 

The girls did not complain, but they huddled up 
close together and set their lips Arm, and every 
time a drop touched them they visibly shrunk and 
shuddered. It was a noble sight to see them sufler- 
ing thus in silence, but it unnerved me altogether. 
I am too sensitive. I got wild and fitful in my 
rowing, and splashed more and more, the harder I 
tried not to. 

I gave it up at last; I said Td row bow. Bow 
thought the arrangement would be better, too, and 
we changed places. The ladies gave an involuntary 
sigh of relief when they saw me go, and quite 
brightened up for a moment. Poor girls I they had 
better have put up with me. The man they had got 
now was a jolly, light-hearted, thick-headed sort of 
a chap, with about as much sensitiveness in him as 
there might be in a Newfoundland puppy. You 
might look daggers at him for an hour and he would 
not notice it, and it would not trouble him if he did. 
He set a good rollicking dashing stroke that sent 
the spray playing all over the boat like a fountain, 
and made the whole crowd sit up straight in no time. 
When he spread more than a pint of water over one 
of those dresses, he would give a pleasant little 
laugh, and say: 


Three Men in a Boat. 


* I beg your pardon, I’m sure ; and offer them 
Ms handkerchief to wipe it off with. 

“ Oh, it’s of no consequence,*’ the poor girls would 
murmur in reply, and covertly draw rugs and coats 
over themselves, and try and protect themselves with 
their lace parasols. 

At lunch they had a very bad time of it. People 
wanted them to sit on the grass, and the grass was 
dusty ; and the tree trunks, against which they were 
invited to lean, did not appear to have been brushed 
for weeks; so they spread their handkerchiefs on the 
ground and sat on those, bolt upright. Somebody, 
in walking about with a plate of beefsteak pie, 
tripped up over a root, and sent the pie flying. None 
of it went over them, fortunately, but the accident 
suggested a fresh danger to them, and agitated 
them; and, whenever anybody moved about, after 
that, with anything in his hand that could fall and 
make a mess, they watched that person with grow- 
ing anxiety until he sat down again. 

“Now, then, you girls,” said our friend Bow to 
them cheerily, after it was all over, “come along 
you’ve got to wash up I ” 

They didn’t understand him at first. When they 
grasped the idea, they said they feared they did no>. 
know how to wash up. 

“Oh, I’ll soon show you,” he cried, “it’s rare 
fun ! You lie down on your — I mean you lean over 
the bank, you know, and sloush the things about in 
the water.” 


89 


Three Men in a Boat. 


The eldest sister said that she was afraid that they 
hadn’t got on dresses suited to the work. 

Oh, they’ll be all right,” said he light-heartedly; 
‘Hack ’em up.” 

And he made them do it, too. He told them that 
that sort of thing was half the fun of a picnic. 
They said it was very interesting. 

Now I come to think it over, was that young man 
as dense-headed as we thought ? or was he — no, im- 
possible! there was such a simple, childlike ex- 
pression about him I 

Harris wanted to get out at Hampton Church, to 
go and see Mrs. Thomas’ tomb. 

‘‘ Who is Mrs. Thomas ? ” I asked. 

How should I know ? ” replied Harris. She’s a 
lady that’s got a funny tomb, and I want to see it.” 

I objected. I don’t know whether it is that I am 
built wrong, but I never did seem to hanker after 
tombstones myself. I know that the proper thing to 
do, when you get to a village or town, is to rush off to 
the churchyard, and enjoy the graves; but it is a 
recreation that I always deny myself. I take no 
interest in creeping round dim and chilly churches 
behind wheezy old men, and reading epitaphs. Not 
even the sight of a bit of cracked brass let into g 
stone affords me what I call real happiness. 

I shock respectable sextons by the imperturba 
bility I am able to assume before exciting inscrip' 
tions, and by my lack of enthusiasm fo” *he ioc^ 
90 


Three Hen in n Boat 


family history, while my ill concealed anxiety to get 
outside wounds their feelings. 

One golden morning of a sunny day I leaned 
against the low stone wall that guarded a little vil- 
lage church, and I smoked, and drank in deep, cahn 
gladness from the sweet, restful scene — the gray old 
church with its clustering ivy and its quaint carved 
wooden porch, the white lane winding down the hill 
between tall rows of elms, the thatched-roof cottages 
peeping above their trim-kept hedges, the silver river 
in the hollow, the wooded hills beyond I 

It was a lovely landscape. It was idyllic, poetical, 
and it inspired me. I felt good and noble. I felt I 
didn’t want to be sinful and wicked any more. I 
would come and live here, and never do any more 
wrong, and lead a blameless, beautiful life, and have 
silver hair when I got old, and all that sort of thing. 

In that moment I forgave all my friends and rela- 
tions for their wickedness and cussedness, and I 
blessed them. They did not know that I blessed 
them. They went their abandoned way all uncon- 
scious of what I, far away in that peaceful village, 
was doing for them ; but I did it, and I wished that 
I could let them know that I had done it, because I 
wanted to make them happy. I was going on think- 
ing away all these grand, tender thoughts, when my 
reverie was broken in upon by a shrill, piping voice 
crying out : 

‘‘All right, sur, I’m a-coming, I’m a-coming. It’» 
all right, sur; don’t you be in a hurry.’' 

91 


Three Men in a Boat. 


f looked up, and saw an old bald-headed maa 
hobbling ijcross the churchyard toward me carrying 
a bunch of keys in his hand that shook and jingled 
at every step. 

I motioned him away with silent dignity, but he 
still advanced, screeching out the while : 

‘‘I'm a-comin’, sur, I’m a-comin. I’m a little 
lame. I ain’t as spry as I used to be. This way, 
sur.” 

Go away, you miserable old man,” I said. 

'^IVe come as soon as I could, sur,” he replied. 
“ My missis never see you till just thi^ minute. You 
follow me, sur.” 

''Go away,” I repeated; 'Ueave me before I get 
over the wall and slay you.’* 

He seemed surprised. 

Don’t you want to see the tombs ?” he said. 

No,” I answered, “ I don’t. I want to stop here, 
leaning up against this gritty old wall. Go away, 
and don’t disturb me. I am chock-full of beautiful 
and noble thoughts, and I want to stop like it, 
because it feels nice and good. Don’t you come 
fooling about, making me mad, chivvying away all 
my better feelings with this silly tombstone nonsense 
of yours. Go away, and get somebody to bury you 
cheap, and I’ll pay half the expense.” 

He was bewildered for a moment. He rubbed 
his eyes, and looked hard at me. I seemed hu- 
man enough on the outside; he couldn’t make it 
out 


92 


Three Men in a Boat. 


He said : 

Yuise a stranger in these parts ? You don^t live 
here ? 

No,” I said, I don’t. You wouldn’t if I did.” 
‘^Well, then,” he said, ^'you want to see the 
tombs — graves — folks been buried, you know — 
coffins I ” 

You are an untruther,” I replied, getting roused ; 

I do not want to see tombs — not your tombs. 
Why should I? We have graves of our own, our 
family has. Why, my Uncle Podger has a tomb in 
Kensal Green Cemetery, that is the pride of all that 
country-side ; and my grandfather’s vault at Bow is 
capable of accommodating eight visitors, while my 
great-aunt Susan has a brick grave in Finchley 
Churchyard, with a headstone with a coffee-pot sort 
of thing in bas-relief upon it, and a six-inch best 
white stone coping all the way round, that cost 
pounds. When I want graves, it is to those places 
that I go and revel. I do not want other folks’. 
When you yourself are buried, I will come and see 
yours. That is all I can do for you.” 

He burst into tears. He said that one of the 
tombs had a bit of stone upon the top of it that had 
been said by some to be probably part of the re- 
mains of a figure of a man, and that another had 
some words carved upon it, that nobody had ever 
been able to decipher. 

I still remained obdurate, and, in broken-heaxted 
^nes, he said : 


Three Men in a Boat. 


''Well, won’t you come and see the memorial 
window ? ” 

I would not even see that, so he fired his last shot. 
He drew near, and whispered hoarsely : 

" I’ve got a couple of skulls down in the crypt,” 
he said; "come and see those. Oh, do come and 
see the skulls I You are a young man out for a 
holiday, and you want to enjoy yourself. Come and 
see the skulls I ” 

Then I turned and fled, and as I sped I heard him 
calling to me: 

" Oh, come and see the skulls; come back and see 
the skulls I” 

Harris, however, revels in tombs, and graves, and 
epitaphs, and monumental inscriptions, and the 
thought of not seeing Mrs. Thomas’ grave made him 
crazy. He said he had looked forward to seeing 
Mrs. Thomas’ grave from the first moment that the 
trip was proposed — said he wouldn’t have joined if 
it hadn’t been for the idea of seeing Mrs. Thomas’ 
tomb. 

I reminded him of George, and how we had to 
get the boat up to Shepperton by five o’clock to 
meet him, and then he went for George. Why was 
George to fool about all day, and leave us to lug 
this lumbering old top-heavy barge up and down 
the river by ourselves to meet him ? Why couldn’t 
George come and do some work? Why couldn't 
he have got the day off, and come down with us? 
Bank be blowed I *\^^at good was he at the bank ? 


Three Men in a l^at. 


never see him doing any work there,” con- 
tinued Harris, “ whenever I go in. He sits behind 
a bit of glass all day, trying to look as if he were 
doing something. What’s the good of a man be« 
hind a bit of glass ? I have to work for my living. 
'Why can’t he work? What use is he there and 
what’s the good of their banks? They take your 
money, and then, when you draw a check, they 
send it back smeared all over with ^No effects,’ 
‘Eefer to drawer.’ What’s the good of that? 
That’s the sort of trick they served me twice last 
week. I'm not going to stand it much longer. I 
shall withdraw my account. If he was here, we 
could go and see that tomb. I don’t believe he*s at 
the bank at all. He’s larking about somewhere, 
that’s what he’s doing, leaving us to do all the work. 
I’m going to get out, and have a drink.” 

I pointed out to him that we were miles away 
from a pub. ; and then he went on about the river, 
and what was the good of the river, and was every 
one who came on the river to die of thirst ? 

It is always best to let Harris have his head when 
he gets like this. Then he pmnps himself out, and 
is quiet afterward. 

I reminded him that there was concentrated 
lemonade in the hamper, and a gallon jar of water 
in the nose of the boat, and that the two only wanted 
mixing to make a cool and refreshing beverage. 

Then he flew off about lemonade, and “ such like 
Bunday-school slops,” as he termed them, ginger 
<^5 


I'hree Men in a Boat. 


beer, raspberry syrup, etc., etc. He said they all 
produced dyspepsia, and ruined body and soul alike, 
and were the cause of half the crime in England. 

He said he must drink something, however, and 
climbed upon the seat, and leaned over to get the 
bottle. It was right at the bottom of the hamper, 
and seemed difficult to find, and he had to lean over 
further and further, and in trying to steer at the 
same time, from a topsy-turvy point of view, he 
pulled the wrong line, and sent the boat into the 
bank, and the shock upset him, and he dived down 
right into the hamper, and stood there on his head, 
holding on to the sides of the boat like grim death, 
his legs sticking up into the air. He dared not move 
for fear of going over, and had to stay there till I 
could get hold of his legs, and haul him back, and 
that made him madder than ever. 


96 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Blackmailing. — The proper course to pursue.— Selfish boorishness 
of river-side landowner. — “Notice” boards. — Unchristianlike 
feelings of H«.,rris. — How Harris sings a comic song.- A high- 
class party.— Shameful conduct of two abandoned young men. 
—Some useless information.— George buys a banjo. 


E stopped under the willows by Kempton Park, 


and lunched. It is a pretty little spot there : 
a pleasant grass plateau, running along by the 
water’s edge, and overhung with willows. We had 
just commenced the third course — the bread and 
jam — when a gentleman in shirt-sleeves and a short 
pipe cam along, and wanted to know if we knew 
that we were trespassing. We said we hadn’t given 
the matter sufficient consideration as yet to enable 
us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, 
but that, if he assured us on his word as a gentleman 
that we were trespassing, we would, without further 
hesitation, believe it. 

He gave us the required assurance, and we thanked 
him, but he still hung about, and seemed to be dis- 
satisfied, so we asked him if there was anything 
further that we could do for him ; and Harris who 
is of a chummy disposition, offered him a bit of 
bread and jam. 

I fancy he must have belonged to some society 
sworn to abstain from bread and jam; for he declined 
it quite gruffly, as if he were vexed at being tempted 



7 


97 


Three Men in a Boat. 


with it, and he added that it was his duty to turn 
us off, 

Harris said that if it was a duty it ought to be 
done, and asked the man what was his idea with 
regard to the best means for accomplishing it. Harris 
is t\^hat you would call a well-made man of about 
number one size, and looks hard and bony, and the 
man measured him up and down, and said he would 
go and consult his master, and then come back and 
chuck us both into the river. 

Of course, we never seen him any more, and, of 
course, all he really wanted was a shilling. There 
are a certain amount of river-side roughs who make 
quite an income, during the summer, by slouching 
about the banks and blackmailing weak-minded 
noodles in this way. They represent themselves as 
sent by the proprietor. The proper course to pur- 
sue is to offer your name and address, and leave the 
owner, if he really has anything to do with the 
matter, to summon you, and prove what damage you 
have done to his land by sitting down on a bit of it. 
But the majority of people are so intensely lazy and 
timid, that they prefer to encourage the imposition 
by giving into it rather than put an end to it by the 
exertion of a little firmness. Where it is really the 
owners that are to blame, they ought to be shown 
up. The selfishness of the riparian proprietor grows 
with every year. If these men had their way they 
would close the Eiver Thames altogether. They 
actually do this along the minor tributary streams 
98 


Three Men in a Boat, 


and in the backwaters. They drive posts into the 
bed of the stream, and draw chains across from bank 
to bank, and nail huge notice-boards on every tree. 
The sight of those notice-boards ro^'^ses every evil 
instinct in my nature. I feel I want to tear each one 
down, and hammer it over the head of the man who 
put it up, until I have killed him, and then I would 
bury him, and put the board up over the grave as a 
tombstone. 

I mentioned these feelings of mine to Harris, and 
he said he had them worse than that. He said he 
not only felt he wanted to kill the man who caused 
the board to be put up, but that he should like to 
slaughter the whole of his family and all his friends 
and relations, and then burn down his house. This 
seemed to me to be going too far, and I said so to 
Harris ; but he answered : 

“Not a bit of it. Serve ’em all jolly well right, 
and I’d go and sing comic songs on the ruins.” 

I was vexed to hear Harris go on in this blood- 
thirsty strain. We never ought to allow our instincts 
:>f justice to degenerate into mere vindictiveness. It 
was a long while before I could get Harris to take 
a more Christian view of the subject, but I succeeded 
at last, and he promised me that he would spare the 
friends and relations at all events, and would not 
sing comic songs on the ruins. 

You have never heard Harris sing a comic song, 
or you would understand the service I had rendered 
to mankind. It was one of Httnlfe’ fixed ideas that 
99 


Three Men in a Boat. 


he can sing a comic song ; the fixed idea on the con- 
trary among those of Harris’ friends who have heard 
him try, is that he canH, and never will be able to. 
and that he ought not to be allowed to try. 

When Harris is at a party, and is asked to sing, 
he replies: “Well, I can only sing a comic song, you 
know ; ” and he says it in a tone that implies that 
his singing of that, however, is a thing that you 
ought to hear at once, and then die. 

“Oh, that is nice,” says the hostess. “Do sing 
one, Mr. Harris ; ” and Harris gets up and makes for 
the piano, with the beaming cheeriness of a generous- 
minded man who is just about to give somebody 
something. 

“ Now, silence, please, everybody,” says the hostess, 
turning round ; “ Mr. Harris is going to sing a comic 
song I ” 

“ Oh, how jolly I ” they murmur ; and they hurry 
in from the conservatory, and come up from the 
stairs, and go and fetch each other from all over the 
house, and crowd into the drawing-room, and sit 
round, all smirking in anticipation. 

Then Harris begins. 

Well, you don’t look for much of a voice in a 
comic song. You don’t expect correct phrasing or 
vocalization. You don’t mind if a man does find 
out, when in the middle of a note, that he is too high, 
and comes down with a jerk. You don’t bother 
about time. You don’t mind a man being a few 
bars in fiont of the accompaniment, and easing up 
100 


Three Men in a Boat. 


in the middle of a line to argue it out with the 
pianist, and then starting the verse afresh. But you 
do expect the words. 

You don't expect a man to never remember more 
than the first three lines of the first verse, and to 
keep on repeating these until it is time to begin the 
chorus. You don’t expect a man to break off in the 
middle of a line, and snigger, and say it’s very 
fiinny, but he’s blest if he can think of the rest of 
it, and then try and make it up for himself, and 
afterward suddenly recollect it, when he has got to 
an entirely different part of the song, and break off, 
without a word of warning, to go back and let you 
have it then and there. You don’t — well, I will just 
give you an idea of Harris’ comic singing, and then 
you can judge of it for yourself. 

Harris {standing up in front of the piano and 
addressing the expectant mob): ^H’m afraid it’s a very 
old thing, you know. I expect you all know it, you 
know. But it’s the only thing I know. It’s the 
Judge’s song out of 'Pinafore’ — no, I don’t mean 
'Pinafore’ — I mean — you know what I mean — the 
other thing, you know. You must all join in the 
chorus, you know.” 

{^Murmurs of delight and anxiety to join in the 
chorus. Brilliant performance of prelude to the 
Judge^s song in Trial by Jury^^ by nervms pianist. 
Moment arrives for Harris to join in, Harris takes 
no notice of it. Nervous pianist commences prelude 
over again^ and Harris, commencing singing at the 
101 


I'hree Men in a fioat. 


lame time^ dashes off the first two lines of the First 
hordes song out of “ PinaforeJ^ Nervous pianist tries 
to push on with prelude^ gives it up, and tries to 
follow Harris with accompaniment to Judgds song out 
of “ Trial hy Juryf^ finds that doesnH answer, and 
tries to recollect what he is doing, and where he is, 
feels his mind giving way, and stops short~\ 

Hakris {with kindly encouragement): all 

right. You’re doing it very well, indeed — go on.” 
Nervous Pianist : I’m afraid there’s a mistake 

somewhere. What are you singing ? ” 

Harris {promptly) : ‘‘Why, the Judge’s song out 
of ‘ Trial by Jury.’ Don’t you know it? ” 

Some Friend of Harris’ {from the bach of the 
room) : “ No, you’re not, you chuckle-head, you’re 
singing the Admiral’s song from ‘ Pinafore.’ ” 

[Long argument between Harris and Harris* friend 
^ to what Harris is really singing. Friend finally 
suggests that it doesnH maHer what Harris is singing 
so long as Harris gets on and sings it, and Harris, 
with an evident sense of injustice rankling inside him 
requests pianist to begin again. Pianist, thereupon, 
starts prelude to the AdmiraVs song, and Harris, 
seizing what he considers to be a favorable opening in 
the musiCj begins^ 

Harris : 

“ ‘ When I was young and called to the Bar,” 

[General roar of laughter, taken by Harris as a 
eompliment. Pianist, thinking of his wife and family, 
102 


Three Men in a Boat. 


up the unequal contest and retiree ; hii place 
being taken by a stronger-nerved man']. 

The New Pianist {cheerily): ‘‘Now then, old 
man, you start off, and I’ll follow. We won’t bother 
about any prelude.” 

Harris [upon whom the explanation of matters has 
slowly dawned — laughing): “By Jove! I beg your 
pardon. Of course — I’ve been mixing up the two 
songs. It was Jenkins confused me, you know. 
Now then.” 

\Singing ; his voice appearing to come from the 
cellar^ and suggesting the first low warnings of an 
approaching earthquake,] 

■^‘ When I was young I served a temp 
As ottice-boy to an attorney’s firm.’ ** 

(Aside to Pianist ] : “ It’s too low, old man ; we’ll 
have that over again, if you don’t mind.” 

\Sings first two lines over again in a high fdsctto 
this time. Great surprise on the part of the audience. 
Nervous old lady near the fire begins to cry^ and 
has to be led out,\ 

Harris {co n ti nuing) : 

1 swept the windows and I swept the door. 

And I ’ 

No — no, I cleaned the vdndows of the big from 
door. And I polished up the floor — no, dash it — 1 
Deg your pardon — fiinny thing. I can’t think oi 
103 


Three Men in a Boat. 


that line. And T — and I — oh, well, we’ll get on to 
the chorus, and chance it ” [sings) : 

“*And I diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-de» 

Till now I am the ruler of the Queen’s navee ; ' 

Now then, chorus — it’s the last two lines repeated, 
/^ou know.” 

General Chorus: 

** *And he diddie-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-dee’d, 

Till now he is the ruler of the Queen’s navee.’ ” 

And Harris never sees what an ass he is making 
of himself, and how he is annoying a lot of people 
who never did him any harm. He honestly imagines 
that he has given them a treat, and says he will sing 
another comic song after supper. 

Speaking of comic songs and parties, reminds me 
of a rather curious incident at which I once assisted; 
which, as it throws much light upon the inner mental 
working of human nature in general, ought, I think, 
to be recorded in these pages. 

We were a fashionable and highly cultured party. 
We had on our best clothes, and we talked pretty, 
and were very happy — all except two young fellows, 
students, just returned from Germany, commonplace 
young men, who seemed restless and uncomfortable, 
as if they found the proceedings slow. The truth 
was, we were too clever for them. Our brilliant but 
polished conversation, and our high-class tastes, were 
beyond tbexn. They were out of place among us. 


Three Men in a Boat. 


They never ought to have been there at all. Every- 
body agreed upon that, later on. 

We played morceaux from the old German masters. 
We discussed philosophy and ethics. We flirted 
with graceful dignity. We were even humorous — 
in a high-class way. 

Somebody recited a French poem after supper, and 
we said it was beautiful; and then a lady sung a 
sentimental ballad in Spanish and it made one or 
two of us weep — it was so pathetic. 

And then those two young men got up, and asked 
if we had ever heard Herr Slossenn Boschen (who 
had just arrived, and was then down in the supper- 
room) sing his great German comic song. 

None of us had heard it, that we could remember. 

The young men said it was the funniest song that 
had ever been written, and that, if we liked, they 
would get Herr Slossenn Boschen, whom they knew 
very well, to sing it. They said it was so funny 
that, when Herr Slossenn Boschen had sung it once 
before the German Emperor, he (the German 
Emperor), had had to be carried off to bed. 

They said nobody could sing it like Herr Slossenn 
Boschen ; he was so intensely serious all through it 
that you might fancy he was reciting a tragedy, and 
that, of course, made it all the funnier. They said 
he never once suggested by his tone or manner that 
he was singing anything fiinny — that would spoil it. 
It was his air of seriousness, almost of pathos, that 
made it so irresistibly amusing. 

105 


Three Men in a Boat. 


We said we yearned to hear it, that we wanted a 
good laugh ; and they went downstairs, and fetched 
Herr Slossenn Boschen. 

He appeared to be quite pleased to sing it, for he 
came up at once, and sat down to the piano without 
another word. 

Oh, it will amuse you. You will laugh,’ ^ whis- 
pered the two young men, as they passed through 
the room and took up an unobtrusive position be- 
hind the professor’s back. 

Herr Slossenn Boschen accompanied himself. The 
prelude did not suggest a comic song exactly. It 
was a weird, soulful air. It quite made one’s flesh 
creep f but we murmured to one another that it was 
the German method, and prepared to enjoy it. 

I don’t understand German myself. I learned it 
at school, but forgot every word of it two years after 
I had left, and have felt much better ever since. 
Still, I did not want the people there to guess my 
ignorance; so I hit upon what I thought to be 
rather a good idea. I kept my eye on the two young 
students, and followed them. When they tittered, 
I tittered; when they roared, I roared; and I also 
threw in a little snigger all by myself now and then, 
as if I had seen a bit of humor that had escaped the 
others. I considered this particularly artfiil on my 
part. 

I noticed, as the song progressed, that a good 
many other people seemed to have their eye fixed 
on the two young men, as well as myself. These 

106 


Three Men in a Boat. 


other people also tittered when the young men 
tittered, and . j*ed when the young men roared; 
and, as the two young men tittered and roared and 
exploded with laughter pretty continuously all 
through the song, it went exceedingly well. 

And yet that German professor did not seem 
happy. At first, when we began to laugh, the ex- 
pression of his face was one of intense surprise, as 
if laughter were the very last thing he had expected 
to be greeted with. We thought this very funny: 
we said his earnest manner was half the humor. 
The slightest hint on his part that he knew how 
fiinny he was would have completely ruined it all. 
As we continued to laugh, his surprise gave way to 
an air of annoyance and indignation, and he scowled 
fiercely round upon us all (except upon the two 
young men, who, being behind him, he could not 
see). That sent us into convulsions. We told each 
other it would be the death of us, this thing. The 
words alone, we said, were enough to send us into 
fits, but added to his mock seriousness — oh, it was 
too much ! 

In the last verse, he surpassed himself. He glow- 
ered round upon us with a look of such concentrated 
ferocity that, but for our being forewarned as to the 
German method of comic singing, we should have 
been nervous ; and he threw such a wailing note of 
agony into the weird music that, if we had not known 
it was a funny song, we might have wept. 

He finished amid a perfect shriek of Hatightpr. We 
107 


Three Men in a Boat. 


said it was the funniest thing we had ever heard in 
all our lives. We said how strange it was that, in 
the face of things like these, there should be a pop- 
ular notion that the Germans hadn’t any sense of 
humor. And we asked the professor why he didn’t 
translate the song into English, so that the common 
people could understand it, and hear what a real 
comic song was like. 

Then Herr Slossenn Boschen got up, and went on 
awful. He swore at us in German (vfhich I should 
judge to be a singularly effective language for that 
purpose), and he danced and shook his fists, and 
called us all the English he knew. He said he had 
never been so insulted in all his life. 

It appeared that the song was not a comic song 
at all. It was about a young girl who lived in the 
Hartz Mountains, and who had given up her life to 
save her lover’s soul ; and he died, and met her spirit 
in the air; and then, in the last verse, he jilted her 
spirit, and went on with another spirit— I’m not 
quite sure of the details, but it was something very 
sad, I know. Herr Boschen said he had sung it 
once before the German Emperor, and he (the Ger- 
man Emperor) had sobbed like a little child. He 
(Herr Boschen) said it was generally acknowledged 
to be one of the most tragic and pathetic songs in 
the German language. 

It was a trying situation for us — very trying. 
There seemed to be no answer. We looked around 
for the two young men who had done this thing, but 

108 


Three Men in a Boat. 


they had left the house in an unostentatious manner 
immediately after the end of the song. 

That was the end of that party. I never saw a 
party break up so quietly, and with so little fuss. 
We never said good-night even to one another. We 
came downstairs one at a time, walking softly, and 
keeping the shady side. We asked the servant for 
our hats and coats in whispers, and opened the door 
for ourselves, and slipped out, and got round the 
corner quickly, avoiding each other as much as 
possible. 

I have never taken much interest in German songs 
since then. 

We reached Sunbury Lock at half-past three. 
The river is sweetly pretty just there before you 
come to the gates, and the backwater is charming; 
but don’t attempt to row up it. 

I tried to do so once. I was sculling, and asked 
the fellows ^vho were steering if they thought it 
could be done, and they said, oh yes I they thought 
so, if I pulled hard. We were just under the little 
foot-bridge that crosses it between the two wears, 
when they said this, and I bent down over the sculls, 
and set myself up, and pulled. 

I pulled splendidly. I got well into a steady, 
rhythmical swing. I put my arms, and my legs, and 
my back into it. I set myself a good, quick, dashing 
stroke, and worked in really grand style. My two 
friends said it was a pleasure to watch me. At the 
end of five minutes I thought we ought to be pretty 
109 


Three Men in a Boat. 


near the wear, and looked up. We were under the 
bridge, in exactly the same spot that we were when 
I began, and there v/ere those two idiots, injuring 
themselves by violent laughing. I had been grind- 
ing away like mad to keep that boat stuck still under 
that bridge. I let other people pull up backwaters 
against strong streams now. 

We sculled up to Walton, a rather large place for 
a river-side town. As with all river-side places, only 
the tiniest corner of it comes down to the water, so 
that from the boat you might fancy it was a village 
of some half dozen houses, all told. Windsor and 
Abingdon are the only towns between London and 
Oxford that you can really see anything of from the 
stream. All the others hide round corners, and 
merely peep at the river down one street; my 
thanks to them for being so considerate, and leav- 
ing the river-banks to woods and fields and water- 
works. 

Even Beading, though it does its best to spoil and 
sully and make hideous as much of the river as it 
can reach, is good-natured enough to keep its ugly 
face a good deal out of sight. 

Caesar, of course, had a little place at Walton — a 
camp, or an intrenchment, or something of that sort. 
Caesar was a regular up-river man. Also Queen 
Elizabeth, she was there, too. You can never get 
away from that woman, go where you will. Crom- 
well and Bradshaw (not the guide man, but King 
Charles^ head man) likewise sojourned here. They 

no 


Three Men in a Boat, 


must have been quite a pleasant little party, alto« 
gether. 

There is an iron “ scold’s bridle ” in Walton 
Church. They used these things in ancient days for 
curbing women’s tongues. They have given up the 
attempt now. I suppose iron was getting scarce, and 
nothing else would be strong enough. 

There are also tombs of note in the church, and I 
was afraid I should never get Harris past them ; but 
he didn’t seem to think of them, and we went on. 
Above the bridge the river winds tremendously. 
This makes it look picturesque ; but it irritates you 
from a towing or sculling point of view, and causes 
argument between the man who is pulling and the 
man who is steering. 

You pass Oatlands Park on the right bank here. 
It is a famous old place. Henry VIII. stole it from 
some one or the other, I forget whom now, and lived 
in it. There is a grotto in the park which you can 
see for a fee, and which is supposed to be very won- 
derful; but I cannot see much in it myself. The 
late Duchess of York, who lived at Oatlands, was 
very fond of dogs, and kept an immense number. 
She had a special graveyard made, in which to bury 
them when they died, and there they lie, about fifty 
of them, with a tombstone over each, and an epitaph 
inscribed thereon. Well, I dare say they deserve it 
quite as much as the average Christian does. 

At “Corway Stakes” — the first bend above Walton ' 
Bridge — was fought a battle between Caesar and 
111 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Cassivelaunus. Cassivelaunus had prepared the river 
for Caesar, by planting it full of stakes (and had, no 
doubt, put up a notice-board). But Caesar crossed in 
spite of this. You couldn’t choke Caesar off that 
river. He is the sort of man we want round the 
backwaters now. 

Halliford and Shepperton are both pretty little 
spots where they touch the river; but there is nothing 
remarkable about either of them. There is a tomb 
in Shepperton Churchyard, however, with a poem on 
it, and I was nervous lest Harris should want to get 
out and fool round it. I saw him fix a longing eye 
on the landing-stage as we drew near it, so I managed, 
by an adroit movement, to jerk his cap into the 
water, and in the excitement of recovering that, and 
his indignation at my clumsiness, he forgot all about 
his beloved graves. 

At Weybridge, the Wey (a pretty little stream, 
navigable for small boats up to Guildford, and one 
which I have always been making up my mind to 
explore, and never have), the Bourne, and the 
Basingstroke Canal all enter the Thames together. 
The lock is just opposite the town, and the first thing 
we saw, when we came in view of it, was George’s 
blazer on one of the lock gates, closer inspection 
showing that George was inside it. 

Montmorency set up a furious barking, I shrieked, 
Harris roared; George waved his hat, and yelled 
back. The lock-keeper rushed out with a drag, under 
the impression that somebody had fallen into the 
112 


Three Men in a Boat. 


lock, and appeared annoyed at finding that no 
one had. 

George had rather a curious oilskin-covered parcel 
in his hand. It was round and flat at one end, with 
a long straight handle sticking out of it. 

" What^s that?” said Harris — ‘‘a frying-pan?” 
No,” said George, with a strange, wild look glii> 
tering in his eyes; ^Hhey are all the rage this season; 
everybody has got them up the river. It’s a banjo.” 

^‘I never knew you played the banjo I” cried 
Harris and I, in one breath. 

‘‘Not exactly,” replied George; “but it’s very 
easy, they tell me; and I’ve got the instruction 
book I ” 


S 


IIS 


Three Men in a Boat 


CHAPTER IX. 


George is introduced to work. — Heathenish instincts of tow- 
lines.— Ungrateful conduct of a double-sculling skiff.— Towers 
and towed.— A use discovered for lovers.— Strange disappear- 
ance of an elderly lady.— Much haste, less speed.— Being 
towed by girls : exciting sensation.— The missing lock, or the 
haunted river. — Music. — Saved ! 


E made George work, now we had got him. 


He did not want to work, of course; that 
goes without saying. He had had a hard time in the 
City, so he exclaimed. Harris, who is callous in his 
nature, and not prone to pity, said : 

Ah I and now you are going to have a hard time 
on the river for a change ; change is good for every 
one. Out you get I ” 

He could not in conscience — not even George^s 
conscience — object, though he did suggest that, per- 
haps, it would be better for him to stop in the boat, 
and get tea ready, while Harris and I towed, 
because getting tea was such a worrying work, and 
Harris and I looked tired. The only reply we made 
to this, however, was to pass him over the tow line, 
and he took it and stepped out. 

There is something very strange and unaccount- 
able about a tow-line. You roll it up with as much 
patience and care as you would take to fold up a 
new pair of trousers, and five minutes afterward. 



il4 


Three Men in a Boat. 


when you pick it up, it is one ghastly, soul revolts 
ing tangle. 

I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly believe 
that if you took an average tow-line, and stretched 
it out straight across the middle of a field, and then 
turned your back on it for thirty seconds, that, when 
you looked around again, you would find that it bad 
got itself altogether in a heap in the middle of the 
field, and had twisted itself up, and tied itself into 
knots, and lost its two ends, and become all loops ; 
and it would take you a good half-hour, sitting down 
there on the grass and swearing all the while, to 
disentangle it again. 

That is my opinion of tow-lines in general. Of 
course, there may be honorable exceptions ; I do not 
say that there are not. There may be tow-lines 
that are a credit to their p:"ofession— conscientious, 
respectable tow-lines — tow-lines that do not imagine 
they are crochet work, and try to knit themselves 
Up into antimacassars the instant they are left to 
themselves. I say there may be such tow-lines; I 
sincerely hope there are. But I have not met with 
tJiem. 

This tow-line I had taken in myself just before 
we had got to the lock. I would not let Harris 
touch it because he is careless. I had looped it 
round slowly and cautiously, and tied it up in the 
middle, and folded it in two, and laid it down gently 
at the bottom of the boat. Harris had lifted it up 
scientifically, and had put it into George^a hand, 
115 


Three Men in a Boat. 


George had taken it firmly, and held it away from 
him, and had begun to unravel it as if he were 
taking the swaddling clothes off a new-born infant ; 
and before he had unwound a dozen yards, the thing 
was more like a badly made door-mat than anything 
else. 

It is always the same, and the same sort of thing 
always goes on in connection with it. The man on 
the bank, who is trying to disentangle it, thinks all 
the fault lies with the man who rolled it up; and 
when a man up the river thinks a thing, he says it. 

What have you been trying to do with it, make 
a fishing net of it? You’ve made a nice mess, you 
have ; why could’t you wind it up properly, you silly 
dummy? he grunts from time to time as he strug- 
gles wildly with it, and lays it out fiat on the tow- 
path, and runs round and round it, trying to find the 
end. 

On the other hand, the man who wound it up 
thinks the whole cause of the muddle rests with the 
man who is trying to unwind it. 

“ It was all right when you took it I he exclaims 
indignantly. Why don’t you think what you are 
doing? You go about things in such a slap-dash 
slyle. You’d get a scaffolding pole entangled, you 
would I 

And then they feel so angry with one another that 
they would like to hang each other with the thing. 
Ten minutes go by, and the first man gives a yell 
and goes mad, and dances on the rope, and tries to 

iia 


Three Men In a Boa& 


pull it straight by seizing hold of the first piece that 
comes to his hand and hauling at it. Of course this 
only gets it into a tighter tangle than ever. Then 
the second man climbs out of the boat and comes to 
help him, and then they get in each other^s way and 
hinder one another. They both get hold of the same 
bit of line, and pull at it in opposite directions, and 
wonder where it is caught. In the end, they do get 
it clear, and then turn round and find that the boat 
has drifted ofi*, and is making straight for the wear. 

This really happened once to my own knowledge. 
It was up by Boveney, one rather windy morning. 
We were pulling down stream, and, as we came 
round the bend, wo noticed a couple of men on the 
bank. They were looking at each other with as be- 
wildered and helplessly miserable an expression as 
I have ever witnessed on any human countenance 
before or since, and they held a long tow-line between 
them. It was clear that something had happened, so 
we eased up and asked them what was the matter. 

‘‘Why, our boat’s gone ofifl ” they replied, in an 
indignant tone. “We just got out to disentangle 
the tow-line, and when we looked round, it was 
gone ! ** 

And they seemed hurt at what they evidently 
i^arded as a mean and ungrateful act on the part 
of the boat. 

We found the truant for them half a mile further 
down, held by some rushes, and we brought it back 
to them. I bet they did not give that boat another 

117 


Three Men in a Sioat. 


chance for a week. I shall never forget the picture 
of those two men walking up and down *he bank 
with a tow-line looking for their boat. 

One sees a good many funny incidt^^cd ^ the 
river in connection with towing. One of tu^, most 
common is the sight of a couple of towers, walking 
briskly along, deep in an animated discussion, while 
the man in the boat, a hundred yards behind them, 
is vainly shrieking to them to stop, and making 
frantic signs of distress with a scull. Something 
has gone wrong; the rudder has come off, or the 
boat-hook has slipped overboard, or his hat has 
dropped into the water and is Seating rapidly down 
stream. He calls to them to stop, quite gently and 
politely at first. 

“Hi I stop a minute, will he shouts cheer- 

ily. “ IVe dropped my hat overboard.^’ 

Then: “Hi! Tom— Dick I canT you hear?’^ not 
quite so afiably this time. 

Then: “Hi I Confound yow, you dunder-headed 
idiots I Hi I stop 1 Oh, you ! ” 

After that he springs up, and dances about, and 
roars himself red in the face, and curses everything 
he knows. And the small boys on the bank stop 
and jeer at him, and pitch stones at him as he is 
pulled along pa^^t them, at the rate of four miles an 
hour, and he can’t get out. 

Much of this sort of trouble would be saved if 
those who are towing would keep remembering that 
they are towing, and give a pretty frequent look 

ns 


Three Men in a Boat. 


round to see how their man is getting on. It is best 
to let one person tow. When two are doing it they 
get chattering, and forget, and the boat itself, offer- 
ing, as it does, but little resistance, is of no real 
service in reminding them of the fact. 

As an example of how utterly oblivious a pair of 
towers can be to their work, George told us, later on 
in the evening, when we were discussing the subject 
after supper, of a very curious instance. 

He and three other men, so he said, were sculling 
a very heavily laden boat up from Maidenhead one 
evening, and a little above Cookham Lock they 
noticed a fellow and a girl walking along the tow- 
path, both deep in an apparently interesting and 
absorbing conversation. They were carrying a boat- 
hook between them, and attached to the boat-hook 
was a tow-line, which trailed behind them, its end 
in the water. No boat was near, no boat was in 
sight. There must have been a boat attached to 
that tow-line at some time or other, that was cer- 
tain ; but what had become of it, what ghastly fate, 
had overtaken it, and those who had been left in it 
was buried in mystery. Whatever the accident may 
have been, however, it had in no way disturbed the 
young lady and gentleman who were towing. They 
had the boat-hook and they had the line, and that 
seemed to be all that they thought necessary to their 
work. 

George was about to call out and wake them up, 
but at that moment a bright idea flashed across him 

119 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and he didn^t. He got the hitcher instead, and 
reached over, and drew in the end of the tow-line ; 
and they made a loop in it, and put it over their 
mast, and then they tidied up the sculls, and went 
and sat down in the stern, and lighted their pipes. 

And that young man and young woman towed 
those four hulking chaps and a heavy boat up to 
Marlow. 

George said he never saw so much thoughtful 
sadness concentrated into one glance before, as when, 
at the lock, that young couple grasped the idea that, 
for the last two miles, they had been towing the 
wrong boat. George fancied that, if it had not been 
for the restraining influence of the sweet woman at 
his side, the young man might have given way to 
violent language. 

The maiden was the first to recover from her sur- 
prise, and when she did, she clasped her hands, and 
said wildly : 

Oh, Henry, then where is auntie?” 

*^Did they ever recover the old lady?” asked 
Harris. 

George replied he did not know. 

Another example of the dangerous want of sym- 
pathy between the tower and towed was witnessed by 
George and myself once up near Walton. It was 
where the tow-path shelves gently down into the 
water, and we were camping on the opposite bank, 
\oticing things in general. By and by a small boat 
120 


Three Men in a Boai^ 


came in sight, towed through the water at a tr<^- 
mendous pace by a powerful barge horse, on which 
sat a very small boy. Scattered about the boat, in 
dreamy and reposeful attitudes, lay five fellows, the 
man who was steering having a particularly restfu- 
appearance. 

should like to see him pull the wrong line,” 
murmured George, as they passed. And at that 
precise moment the man did it, and the boat rushed 
up the bank with a noise like the ripping up of forty 
thousand linen sheets. Two men, a hamper, and 
three oars immediately left the boat on the larboard 
side, and reclined on the bank, and one and a half 
moments afterward, two other men disembarked from 
the starboard, and sat down among boat-hooks and 
sails and carpet-bags and bottles. The last man went 
on twenty yards further, and then got out on his 
head. 

This seemed to sort of lighten the boat, and it 
went on much easier, the small boy shouting at the 
top of his voice, and urging his steed into a gallop. 
The fellows sat up and stared at one another. It 
was some seconds before they realized what had hap- 
pened to them, but, when they did, they began to 
shout lustily for the boy to stop. He, however, was 
too much occupied with the horse to hear them, and 
we watched them, flying after him, until the distance 
hid them from view. 

I cannot say I was sorry at their mishap. Indeed, 
I only wish that all the young fools who have their 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


boats towed in this fashion — and 'plenty do — could 
meet with similar misfortunes. Besides the risk 
they run themselves, they become a danger and an 
annoyance to every other boat they pass. Going at 
the pace they do, it is impossible for them to get out 
of anybody else’s way, or for anybody else to get out 
of theirs. Their line gets hitched across your mast, 
and overturns you, or it catches somebody in the 
boat, and either throws them into the water, or cuts 
their face open. The best plan is to stand your 
ground, and be prepared to keep them off with the 
butt-end of a mast. 

Of all experiences in connection with towing, the 
most exciting is being towed by girls. It is a sensa- 
tion that nobody ought to miss. It takes three girls 
to tow always ; two hold the rope, and the other one 
runs round and round, and giggles. They generally 
begin by getting themselves tied up. They get the 
line round their legs, and have to sit down on the path 
and undo each other, and then they twist it round their 
necks, and are nearly strangled. They fix it straight, 
however, at last, and start off at a run, pulling the 
boat along at quite a dangerous pace. At the end of 
a hundred yards they are naturally breathless, and 
suddenly stop, and all sit down on the grass and 
laugh, and your boat drifts out to midstream and turns 
round, before you know what has happened, or can ge 
hold of a scull. Then they stand up, and are surpr e^ 
Oh, look I they say ; “ he’s gone right out ip "‘ 
the middle.’^ 


122 


Three Men in a Boat. 


They pull on pretty steadily for a bit '^ffcer this, 
and then it all at once occurs to one of .nem that 
she will pin up her frock, and they ease up for the 
purpose, and the boat runs aground. 

You jump up, and push it off, and you jhout to 
them not to stop. 

Yes. What’s the matter ? ” they shout back. 

“ Don’t stop,” you roar. 

" Don’t what?” 

“ Don’t stop — go on — go on I ” 

‘‘ Go back, Emily, and see what it is they want,’^ 
says one ; and Emily comes back, and asks what it is. 

^‘What do you want?” she says; anything 
happened ? ” 

“No,” you reply, “:”s all right; only go on, you 
know — don’t stop.” 

“Why not?” 

“ Why, we can’t steer, if you keep stopping. You 
must keep some way on the boat.” 

“ Keep some what ? ” 

“ Some way — you must keep the boat moving.’^ 

“ Oh, all right. I’ll tell ’em. Are we doing it all 
right? ” 

“ Oh, yes, very nicely indeed, only don’t stop.” 

“ It doesn’t seem difficult at all. I thought it was 
so hard.” 

“ Oh, no, it’s simple enough. You want to keep 
on steady at it, that’s all.” 

“ I see. Give me out my red shawl, it’s under the 
tushion.” 


123 


Three Men in a Boat. 


You find the shawl, and hand it out, and by this 
time another one has come back and thinks she will 
have hers too, and they take Mary’s on chance, and 
Mary does not want it, so they bring it back and 
have a pocket-comb instead. It is about twenty 
minutes before they get off again, and at the next 
corner they see a cow, and you have to leave the 
boat to chivvy the cow out of their way. 

There is never a dull moment in the boat, while 
girls are tewing it. 

George got the line right after awhile, and towed 
us steadily on to Penton Hook. There we discussed 
the important question of camping. We had de- 
cided to sleep on board that night, and we had 
either to lay up just about there, or go on past 
Staines. It seemed early to think about shutting 
up then, however, with the sun still in the heavens, 
and we settled to push straight on for Runnymead, 
three and a half miles further, a quiet wooded part 
of the river, and where there is good shelter. 

We all wished, however, afterward, that we had 
stopped at Penton Hook. Three or four miles up 
stream is a trifle, early in the morning, but it is a 
v/eary pull at the end of a long day. You take no 
interest in the scenery during these last few miles. 
Zou do not chat and laugh. Every half mile you 
cover seems like two. You can hardly believe you 
are only where you are, and you are convinced that 
the map must be wrong; and, when you have trudged 
124 


Three Men in a Boat. 


along for what seems to you at least ten miles, and 
still the lock is not in sight, you begin to seriously 
fear that somebody must have sneaked it, and run off 
with it. 

I remember being terribly upset once up the river 
(in a figurative sense, I mean). I was out with a 
young lady — cousin on my mother^s side — and we 
were pulling down to Goring. It was rather late, 
and we were anxious to get in— at least sAe was anxi- 
ous to get in. It was half-past six when we reached 
Benson’s Lock, and dusk was drawing on, and she 
began to get excited then. She said she must be in 
to supper. I said it was a thing I felt I wanted to be 
in at, too ; and I drew out a map I had with me to 
see exactly how far it was. I saw it was just a mile 
and a half to the next lock — Wallingford — and five 
on from there to Cleeve. 

Oh, it’s all right I” I said. We’ll be through 
the next lock before seven, and then there is only 
one more;’’ and I settled down and pulled steadily 
away. 

We passed the bridge, and soon after that I asked 
if she saw the lock. She said no, she did not see any 
lock; and I said, “Oh I” and pulled on. Another 
five minutes went by, and then I asked her to look 
again. 

“No,” she said ; “ I can’t see any signs of a lock.” 

“ You — you are sure you know a lock when you do 
see one?” I asked hesitatingly, not wishing to offend 

her. 


125 


Three Men in a Boat. 


The question did oiFend her, however, and she sug- 
gested that I had better look for myself ; so I laid 
down the sculls, and took a view. The river stretched 
out straight before us in the twilight for about a 
mile ; not a ghost of a lock was to be seen. 

You donT think we have lost our way, do you? 
asked my companion. 

I did not see how that was possible; though, as I 
suggested, we might have somehow get into the wear 
stream, and be making for the falls. 

This idea did not comfort her in the least, and she 
began to cry. She said we should both be drowned, and 
that it was a judgment on her for coming out with me. 

It seemed an excessive punishment, I thought; but 
my cousin thought not, and hoped it would all soon 
be over. 

I tried to reassure her, and to make light of the 
whole affair. I said that the fact evidently was that 
I was not rowing as fast as I fancied I was, but that 
we should soon reach the lock now ; and I pulled on 
for another mile. 

Then I began tc get nervous myself. I looked 
again at the map. There was Wallingford Lock, 
clearly marked, a mile and a half below Benson^s, 
It was a good, reliable map; and, besides, I recol- 
lected the lock myself. I had been through it 
twice. Where were we? What had happened to 
us ? I began to think it must be all a dream, and 
that I was really asleep in bed, and should wake 
in a minute, and be told it wa& past ten, 

126 


Tliree Men in a Boat. 


I asked my cousin if ske thought it could be a 
dream, and she replied that she was just about to 
ask me the same question ; and then we both won- 
dered if we were both asleep ; and if so, who was the 
real one that was dreaming, and who was the one 
that was only a dream ; it got quite interesting. 

I still went on pulling, however, and still no lock 
came in sight, and the river grew more and more 
gloomy and mysterious under the gathering shadows 
of night, and things seemed to be getting weird and 
uncanny. I thought of hobgoblins and banshees, 
and will-o’-the-wisps, and those wicked girls who sit 
up all night on rocks, and lure people into whirl- 
pools and things ; and I wished I had been a better 
man, and knew more hymns ; and in the middle of 
these reflections I heard the blessed strains of “ He’s 
got ’em on,” played badly on a concertina, and knew 
that we were saved. 

I do not admire the tones of a concertina, as a 
rule ; but oh I how beautiful the music seemed to us 
both then — far, far more beautiful than the voice of 
Orpheus or the lute of Apollo, or anything of that 
sort could have sounded. Heavenly melody, in our 
then state of mind, would only have still further 
harrowed us. A soul-moving harmony, correctly 
performed, we should have taken as a spirit- warning, 
and have given up all hope. But about the strains of 
He’s got ’em on,” jerked spasmodically, and with 
involuntary variations, out of a wheezy accordion, 
there was something singularly human and reassuring. 
127 


Three Men in a Boat. 


The sweet sounds drew nearer, and soon the boat 
from which they were worked lay alongside us. 

It contained a party of provincial ’Arrys and 
Arriets, out for a moonlight sail. (There was not 
any moon, but that was not their fault.) I never 
saw more attractive, lovable people in all my life. I 
hailed them, and asked if they could tell me the way 
to Wallingford Lock; and I explained that I had 
been looking for it for the last two hours. 

‘‘Wallingford Lock I’’ they answered. “Lor’ love 
you, sir, that’s been done away with for over a year. 
There ain’t no Wallingford Lock now, sir. You’re 
close to Cleeve now. Blow me tight if ’ere ain’t a 
gentleman been looking for Wallingford Lock, Bill !” 

I had never thought of that. I wanted to fall 
upon all their necks and bless them ; but the stream 
was running too strong just there to allow of this, 
so I had to content myself with mere cold-sounding 
words of gratitude. 

We thanked them over and over again, and we 
said it was a lovely night, and we wished them a 
pleasant trip, and, I think, I invited them all to 
come and spend a week with me, and my cousin 
said her mother would be pleased to see them. And 
we sung the soldier’s chorus out of “ Faust ” and got 
home in time for supper after all. 


128 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER X. 

^>ur first night. — Under canvas. — An appeal for help. — Contrark 
ness of teakettles, how to overcome.— Supper.— How to feel 
virtuous. — Wanted! a comfortably-appointed, well-drained 
desert island, neighborhood of South Pacific Ocean preferred. 
—Funny thing that happened to George’s father.— A restlesa 
night. 

H AEEIS and I began to think that Bell Wear 
Lock must have been done away with after 
the same manner. George had towed us up to 
Staines, and we had taken the boat from there, and 
it seemed that we were dragging fifty tons after us, 
and were walking forty miles. It was half-past 
seven when we were through ; and we all got in and 
sculled up close to the left bank, looking out for a 
spot to haul up in. 

We had originally intended to go on to Magna 
Charta Island, a sweetly pretty part of the river, 
where it winds through a soft, green valley, and to 
camp in one of the many picturesque inlets to bo 
found round that tiny shore. But somehow, we 
did not feel that we yearned for the picturesque 
nearly so much now as we had earlier in the day. 
A, bit of water between a coal barge and a gas- 
works would have quite satisfied us for that night. 
We did not want scenery. We wanted to have our 
supper and go to bed. However, we did pull up to 
the point — Picnic Point it is called— and dropped 


Three Men in a Boat 


into a very pleasant nook under a great elm tree, to 
the spreading roots of which we fastened the boat. 

Then we thought we were going to have supper 
(we had dispensed with tea, so as to save time), Wt 
George said no ; that we had better get the canvas 
up first, before it got quite dark, and while we could 
see what we were doing. Then, he said, all our work 
would be done, and we could sit down to eat with an 
easy mind. 

That canvas wanted more putting up than I think 
any of us had bargained for. It looked so simple in 
the abstract. You took five iron arches, like gigantic 
croquet hoops, and fitted them up over the boat, and 
then stretched the canvas over them, and fastened it 
down : it would take quite ten minutes we thought. 

That was an underestimate. 

We took up the hoops, and began to drop them 
into the sockets placed for them. You would not 
imagine this to be dangerous work; but, looking back 
now, the wonder to me is that any of us are alive to 
tell the tale. They w^ere not hoops, they were demons. 
First they would not fit into their sockets at all, and 
we had to jump on them, and kick them, and ham- 
mer at them with the boat-hook; and, when they 
were in, it turned out that they were the wrong hoops 
for those particular sockets, and they had to come 
out again. 

But they would not come out, until two of us had 
gone and struggled with them for five minutes, "hen 
they v/ould jump up suddenly and try and throw us 
130 


Three Men in a Boat 


into th^ water and drown us. They had hinges in 
the middle, and, when we were not looking, they 
nipped us with these hinges in delicate parts of the 
body ; and, while we were wrestling with one side 
of the hoop, and endeavoring to persuade it to do its 
duty, the other side would come behind us in a 
cowardly manner, and hit us over the head. 

We got fhem fixed at last, and then all that waa 
to be done was to arrange the covering over them. 
George unrolled it, and fastened one end over the 
nose of the boat. Harris stood in the middle to take 
it from George and roll it on to me, and I kept by 
the stern to receive it. It was a long time coming 
down to me. George did his part all right, but it 
was new work to Harris, and he bungled it. 

How he managed it I do not know, he could not 
explain himself ; but by some mysterious process or 
other he succeeded, after ten minutes of superhuman 
efibrt. in getting himself completely rolled up in it. 
He was so firmly wrapped round and tucked in and 
folded over, that he could not get out. He, of course, 
made frantic struggles for freedom — the birthright of 
every Englishman — and, in doing so (I learned this 
afterward), knocked over George; and then George, 
swearing at Harris, began to struggle too, and got 
himself entangled and rolled up. 

I knew nothing about all this at the time. I did 
not understand the business at all myself. I had 
been told to stand where I was, and wait till the 
canv^ came tp me, and Montmoreiicjr^ tmd I stp\ ) 

iii 


Three Men in a Boat, 


there and waited, both as good as gold. We could 
see the canvas being violently jerked and tossed about 
pretty considerably ; but we supposed this was part 
of the method, and did not interfere. 

We also heard much smothered language coming 
from underneath it, and we guessed that they were 
finding the job rather troublesome, and concluded 
that we would wait until things had got a little 
simpler before we joined in. 

We waited some time, but matters seemed to get 
only more and more involved, until, at last, George’s 
head came wriggling out over the side of the boat, 
and spoke up. 

It said : 

‘‘Give us a hand here, can’t you, you cuckoo; 
standing there like a stuffed mummy, when you seo 
we are both being suffocated, you dummy I ” 

I never could withstand an appeal for help, so I 
went and undid them ; not before it was time, either, 
for Harris was nearly black in the face. 

It took us half an hour’s hard labor, after that, 
before it was properly up, and then we cleared iht 
decks, and got our supper. We put the kettle on to 
boil, up in the nose of the boat, and went down to 
the stern and pretended to take no notice of it, but 
set to work to get the other things out. 

That is the only way to get a kettle to boil up the 
river. If it sees that you are waiting for it and are 
anxious, it will never even sing. You have to go 
away and begin your meal, as if you were not goin^ 

13 ^ 


ihree Men in a Boat. 


to have any tea at all. You must not even look 
round at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering 
away, mad to be made into tea. 

It is a good plan, too, if you are in a great hurry, 
to talk very loudly to each other about how you 
donT need any tea, and are not going to have any. 
You get near the kettle, so that it can overhear you, 
and then you shout out, I don’t want any tea ; do 
you, George?’’ to which George shouts back, ^^Oh, 
no, I don’t like tea ; we’ll have lemonade instead — 
tea’s so indigestible.” Upon which the kettle boils 
over, and puts the stove out. 

We adopted this harmless bit of trickery, and the 
result was that, by the time everything else was 
ready, the tea was waiting. Then we lighted the 
lantern, and squatted down to supper. 

We wanted that supper. 

For five and thirty minutes not a sound was 
heard throughout the length and breadth of that 
boat, save the clank of cutlery and crockery, and 
the steady grinding of four sets of molars. At the 
end of five and thirty minutes, Harris said, Ah I ” 
and took his left leg out from under him, and put 
his right one there instead. 

Five minutes afterward, George said, Ah I” too, 
nd threw his plate out on the bank ; and, three 
iiiinutes later than that, Montmorency gave the first 
sign of contentment he had exhibited since we had 
started, and rolled over on his side, and spread his 
legs out ; and then I said, ‘‘ Ah I ” and bent my head 
133 


Three Men in a Boat. 


back, and bumped it against one of the hoops, but I 
did not mind it. I did not even swear. 

How good one feels when one is Ml — how satis* 
ded with ourselves and with the world I People 
who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience 
makes you very happy and contented; but a Ml 
:jtomach does the business quite as well, and is 
cheaper, and more easily obtained. One feels so 
forgiving and generous after a substantial and well- 
digested meal — so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted. 

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect 
by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we can- 
not think, unless our stomachs will so. It dictates 
to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and 
bacon it says “ Work I After beefsteak and porter 
it says “ Sleep I After a cup of tea (two spoonMs 
for each cup, and don’t let it stand more than three 
minutes), it says to the brain, “Now rise and show 
your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender*, 
see, with a clear eye, into nature and into life; 
spread your white wings of quivering thought, and 
soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world be- 
neath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to 
the gates of eternity I ’’ 

After hot muffins it says “ Be dull and soulless, 
^k:e a beast of the field— a brainless animal, with 
: liess eye, unlighted by any ray of fancy, or of 
a ope, or fear, or love, or life.” And after brandy, 
Uiken in sufficient quantity, it says, “ Now come, 
fool, grin and tumble, that your fellow-men may 
134 


Three Men in a Boat. 


laugh — drivel in folly, and splutter in senseless 
sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man 
whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens, side by 
side, in half an inch of alcohol/’ 

We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our 
stomach. Reach not after morality and righteous- 
ness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, 
and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue 
and contentment will come and reign within your 
heart, unsought by any effort of your own ; and you 
will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a 
tender father — a noble, pious man. 

Before our supper Harris and George and I were 
quarrelsome and snappy and ill-tempered ; after our 
supper we sat and beamed on one another, and we 
beamed upon the dog, too. We loved one another, 
we loved everyboay. Harris, in moving about, trod 
on George’s corn. Had this happened before supper, 
George would have expressed wishes and desires 
concerning Harris’ fate in this world and the next 
that would have made a thoughtful man shudder. 

As it was, he said: ‘‘Steady, old man; ’ware 
wheat.” 

And Harris, instead of merely observing, in his 
most unplcasi ^t tones, that a fellow could hardly 
help treading on -^me bit of George’s foot, if he had 
to move about at all within ten yards of where 
George was sitting, suggesting that George never 
ought to come in to an ordinary-sized boat with feet 
that length, and advising him to hang them over 
185 


Three Men in a Boat. 


the side, as he would have done before supper, now 
said ; “ Oh, I’m so sorry^ old chap ; I hope I haven’t 
hurt you.’' 

And George said : Not at all ; ” that it was his 

fault ; and Harris said no, it was his. 

It was quite pretty to hear them. 

We lighted our pipes, and sat looking out on the 
quiet night, and talked. 

George said why could we not be always like this 
— away from the world, with its sin and temptation, 
leading sober, peaceful lives, and doing good. I said 
it was the sort of thing I had often longed for my- 
self; and we discussed the possibility of our going 
away, we four, to some handy, well-fitted desert 
island, and living there in the woods. 

Harris said that the danger about desert islands, 
as far as he had heard, was that they were so damp ; 
but George said no, not if properly drained. 

And then we got on to drains, and that put George 
in mind of a very funny thing that happened to his 
father once. He said his father was traveling with 
another fellow through Wales, and one night they 
stopped at a little inn where there were some other 
fellows, and they joined the other fellows, and spent 
the evening v/ith them. 

They had a very jolly evening, and sat up late, 
and by the time they came to go to bed, they (this 
was when George’s father was a very young man) 
were slightly jolly, too. They (George’s father and 
George’s father’s friend) were to sleep in the same 
136 


V 


Three Men in a Boat, 


room, but in different beds. They took the candle, 
and went up. The candle lurched up against the 
wall when they got into the room, and went out, 
and they had to undress and grope into bed in the 
dark. This they did; but, instead of getting into 
separate beds, as they thought they were doing, 
they both climbed into the same one without know- 
ing it — one getting in with his head at the top, and 
the other crawling in from the other side of the com-: 
pass, and lying with his feet on the pillow. 

There was silence for a moment, and then George^s 
father said : 

‘^Joel” 

^‘What’s the matter Tom?” replied Joe^s voice 
from the other end of the bed. 

‘‘Why there^s a man in my bed,” said George^s 
father ; “ here’s his feet on my pillow.” 

“ Well, it’s an extraordinary thing, Tom,” answered 
the other ; “ but I’m blessed if there isn’t a man in 
my bed, too I ” 

“What are you going to do?” asked George’s 
father. 

“ Well, I’m going to chuck him out,” replied Joe. 

“ So am I,” said George’s father valiantly. 

There was a brief struggle followed by two heavy 
bumps on the floor, and then a rather doleful voice 
said: 

“ I say Tom I ” 

“Yes I” 

“ How have you got on ? 

137 


Three Men in a Boat. 


"Well, to tell you the truth, my man’s chucked 
me out.” 

"So’s mine I I say, I don’t think much of this 
inn, do you ? ” 

"What was the name of that inn?” said Harris. 

"The Pig and Whistle,” said George. "Why?” 

"Ah, no, then it isn’t the same,” replied Harris. 

" What do you mean ? ” queried George. 

"Why it’s so curious,” murmured Harris, "but 
precisely that very same thing happened to my father 
once at a country inn. IVe often heard him tell the 
tale. I thought it might have been the same inn.” 

We turned in at ten that night, and I thought I 
should sleep well, being tired ; but I didn’t. As a 
rule, I undress and put my head on the pillow, and 
then somebody bangs at the door, and says it is half- 
past eight; but to-night everything seemed against 
me ; the novelty of it all, the hardness of the boat, 
the cramped position (I was lying with my feet under 
one seat, and my head on another), the sound of the 
lapping water round the boat, and the wind among 
the branches, kept me restless and disturbed. 

I did get to sleep for a few hours, and then some 
part of the boat which seemed to have grown up in 
the night — for it certainly was not there when we 
started, and it had disappeared by the morning — 
kept digging into my spine. I slept through it for 
awhile, dreaming that 1 had swallowed a sovereign, 
and that they were cutting a whole in my back with 
138 


Three Men in a Boat. 


a gimlet, so as to try and get it out. I thought it 
very unkind of them, and I told them I would owe 
them the money, and they should have it at the end 
of the month. But they would not hear of that, 
and said it would be much better if they had it 
then, because otherwise the interest would accumu- 
late so. I got quite cross with them after a bit, and 
told them what I thought of them, and then they 
gave the gimlet such an excruciating wrench that I 
woke up. 

The boat seemed stuffy, and my head ached ? so 
I thought I would step out into the cool night an. 
I slipped on what clothes I could find about — some 
of my own, and some of George’s and Harris’ — and 
crept under the canvas on to the bank. 

It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk and 
left the earth quite alone with the stars. It seemed 
as if, in the silence and the hush, while we her chil- 
dren slept, they were talking with her, their sister — 
conversing of mighty mysteries in voices too vast and 
deep for childish human ears to catch the sound. 

They awe us, these strange stars, so cold, so clear. 
We are as children whose small feet have strayed 
into some dim-lighted temple of the god they have 
been taught to worship, but know not ; and, stand- 
ing where the echoing dome spans the long vista of 
the shadowy light, glance up, half hoping, half 
afraid to see some awful vision hovering fhere. 
And yet it seems so full of comfort and of strength, 
night. In its great presence our small sorrows 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


creep away ashamed. The day has been so full of 
fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of 
evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has 
seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then night, like 
some great loving mother, gently lays her hand 
upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear- 
stained faces up to hers and smiles ; and, though she 
does not speak, we know what she would say, and 
lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the 
pai n is gone. 

Sometimes our pain is very deep and real, and we 
stand before her very silent, because there is no 
language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s heart 
is full of pity for us; she cannot ease our aching; 
she takes our hand in hers, and the little world 
grows very small and very far away beneath us, 
and borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment 
into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the 
wondrous light of that great Presence, all human 
life lies like a book before us, and all know that 
Pain and Sorrow are but the angels of God. 

Only those who have worn the crown of suflering 
can look upon that wondrous light ; and they, when 
they return, may not speak of it. or tell the mystery 
they know. 

Once upon a time, through a strange country there 
rode some goodly knights, and their path lay by a 
deep wood, where tangled briers grew very thick and 
strong, and tore the flesh of them that lost their way 
therein. And the leaves of the trees that grew in 


Three Men in a Boat, 


the wood were very dark and thick, so that no ray of 
light came through the branches to lighten the gloom 
and sadness. 

And, as they passed by that dark wood, one 
knight of those that rode, missing his comrades, 
wandered far away, and returned to them no more ; 
and they, sorely grieving, rode on without him, 
mourning him as one dead. 

Now, when they reached the fair castle toward 
which they had been journeying, they stayed there 
many days, and made merry; and one night, as 
they sat in cheerful ease around the logs that burned 
in the great hall, and drank a loving measure, there 
came the comrade they had lost, and greeted them. 
His clothes were ragged, like a beggar’s, and many 
sad wounds were on his sweet flesh, but upon his 
face there shone a great radiance of deep joy. 

And they questioned him, asking him what had 
befallen him; and he told them how in the dark 
wood he had lost his way, and had wandered many 
days and nights, till, torn and bleeding, he had lain 
him down to die. 

Then, when he was nigh unto death, lo ! through 
the savage gloom there came to him a stately maiden, 
and took him by the hand and led him on through 
devious paths, unknown to any man, until upon the 
darkness of the wood there dawned a light such as 
the light of day was unto but as a little lamp unto 
the sun ; and, in that wondrous light, our wayworn 
knight saw, as in a dream, a vision, and so glorious, 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


so fair the vision seemed, that of his bleeding wounds 
he thought no more, but stood as one entranced, 
whose joy is deep as is the sea, whereof no man can 
tell the depth. 

And the vision faded, and the knight, kneeling 
upon the ground, thanked the good saint who into 
that sad wood had strayed his steps, so he had seen 
the vision that lay there hid. 

And the name of the dark forest was Sorrow ; but 
of the vision that the good knight saw therein we 
may not speak nor tell. 


m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER XI. 

How George, once upon a time, got up early in the morning.— 
George, Harris and Montmorency do not like the look of the 
cold water. — Heroism and determination on the part of J. — 
George and his shirt : story with a moral. — Harris as cook.— 
Historical retrospect, specially inserted for the use of schools. 

J WOKE at six the next morning, and found George 
awake too. We both turned round and tried to 
go to sleep again, but we could not. Had there been 
any particular reason why we should not have gone 
to sleep again but have got up and dressed then and 
there we should have dropped off while we were 
looking at our watches and have slept till ten. As 
there was no earthly necessity for our getting up 
under another two hours at the very least, and our 
getting up at that time was an utter absurdity, it was 
only in keeping with the natural cussedness of things 
in general that we should both feel that lying down 
for five minutes more would be death to us. 

George said that the same kind of thing, only 
worse, had happened to him some eighteen months 
ago, when he was lodging by himself in the house 
of a certain Mrs. Gippings. He said his watch went 
wrong one evening and stopped at a quarter past 
eight. He did not know this at the time, because, 
for some reason or other, he forgot to wind it up 
when he went to bed (an unusual occurrence with him) 
143 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and hung it up over his pillow without ever looking 
at the thing. 

It was in the winter when this happened, very near 
the shortest day, and a week of fog into the bargain, 
so the fact that it was still very dark when George 
woke in the morning was no guide to him as to the 
time. He reached up, and hauled down his watch. 
It was a quarter past eight. 

‘^Angels and ministers of grace defend us I” ex- 
claimed George; ‘^and here have I got to be in the 
City by nine. Why didn’t somebody call me? Oh, 
this is a shame!” And he flung the watch down, 
and sprung out of bed, and had a cold bath, and 
washed himself, and dressed himself, and shaved 
himself in cold water because there was not time to 
wait for the hot, and then rushed and had another 
look at the watch. 

Whether the shaking it had received in being 
thrown down on the bed had started it, or how it 
was, George could not say, but certain it was that 
from a quarter past eight it had begun to go, and 
now pointed to twenty minutes to nine. 

George snatched it up and rushed downstairs. In 
the sitting-room all was dark and silent; there was 
no fire, no breakfast. George said it was a wicked 
shame ef Mrs. G., and he made up his mind to tell 
her what he thought of her when he came home in 
the evening. Then he dashed on his great-coat and 
hat, and seizing his umbrella made for the front 
door. The door was not even unbolted. George 
144 


Three Men in a Boat. 


anathematized Mrs. G. for a lazy old woman, and 
thought it was very strange that people could not get 
up at a decent, respectable time, unlocked and un- 
bolted the door and ran out. 

He ran hard for a quarter of a mile, and at the end 
of that distance it began to be borne in upon him as 
a strange and curious thing that there were so few 
people about, and that there were no shops open. It 
was certainly a very dark and foggy morning, but 
still it seemed an unusual course to stop all business 
on that account. He had to go to business; why 
should other people stop in bed merely because it was 
dark and foggy I 

At length he reached Holborn. Not a shutter was 
down I not a bus was about I There were three men 
in sight, one of whom was a policeman ; a market- 
cart full of cabbages, and a dilapidated-looking cab. 
George pulled out his watch and looked at it ; it was 
five minutes to nine I He stood still and counted his 
pulse. He stooped down and felt his legs. Then, 
with his watch still in his hand, he went up to the 
policeman, and asked him if he knew what the 
time was. 

“ What^s the time ? said the man, eying George 
up and down with evident suspicion ; why, if you 
listen you will hear it strike.’^ 

George listened, and a neighboring clock imme- 
diately obliged. 

But it’s only gone three I ” said George, in an 
injured tone, when it had finished. 

10 145 


Three Men in a Boat. 


•'Well, and how many did you want it to go?’* 
replied the constable. 

" Why, nine,” said George, showing his watch. 

"Bo you know where you live?” said the guardian 
of public order severely. 

George thought, and gave the address. 

"Oh I that’s where it is, is it?” replied the man; 
" well, you take my advice and go there quietly, and 
take that watch of yours with you ; and don’t let’s 
have any more of it.” 

And George went home again, musing as he walked 
along, and let himself in. 

At first, when he got in, he determined to undress 
and go to bed again; but when he thought of the 
re-dressing and re-washing, and the having of 
another bath, he determined he would not, but 
would sit up and go to sleep in the easy-chair. 

But he could not get to sleep ; he never felt more 
wakeful in his life ; so he lighted the lamp and got 
out the chess-board, and played himself a game of 
chess. But even that did not enliven him ; it seemed 
slow somehow ; so he gave chess up and tried to read. 
He did not seem able to take any sort of interest in 
reading either, so he put on his coat again and went 
out for a walk. 

It was horribly lonesome and dismal, and all the 
policemen he met regarded him with undisguised 
suspicion, and turned their lanterns on him and 
followed him about, and this had such an effect 
upon him at last that he began to feel as if he really 
146 


Three Men in a Boat. 


had done something, and he got to slinking down 
the by-streets and hiding in dark doorways when he 
heard the regulation flip-flop approaching. 

Of course, this conduct made the force only more 
distrustful of him than ever, and they would come 
and rout him out and ask him what he was doing 
there; and when he answered, ‘^Nothing,” he had 
merely come out for a stroll (it was then four o^clock 
ill the morning), they looked as though they did not 
believe him, and two plain-clothes constables came 
home with him to see if he really did live where he 
had said he did. They saw him go in with his 
key, and then they took up a position opposite and 
watched the house. 

He thought he would light the fire when he got 
inside, and make himself some breakfast, just to pass 
away the time ; but he did not seem able to handle 
anything from a scuttleful of coals to a teaspoon 
without dropping it or falling over it, and making 
such a noise that he was in mortal fear that it would 
wake Mrs. G. up, and that she would think it was 
burglars and open the window and call ‘‘Police!” 
and then these two detectives would rush in and 
handcuff him, and march him ofi* to the police court. 

He was in a morbidly nervous state by this time, 
and he pictured the trial, and his trying to explain 
the circumstances to the jury, and nobody believing 
him, and his being sentenced to twenty years’ penal 
servitude, and his mother dying of a broken heart. 
So he gave up trying to get breakfast, and wrapped 
147 


Thre<?. Me??. :» d fioat. 


himself up in his overcoat and sat in the easy-chair 
till Mrs. G. came down at half-past seven. 

He said he had never got up too early since that 
morning ; it had been such a warning to him. 

We had been sitting huddled up in our rugs while 
George had been telling me this true story, and on 
his finishing it I set to work to wake up Harris with 
a scull. The third prod did it ; and he turned over 
on the other side, and said he would be down in a 
minute, and that he would have his lace-up boots. 
We soon let him know where he was, however, by the 
aid of the hitcher, and he sat up suddenly, sending 
Montmorency, who had been sleeping the sleep of 
the just right on the middle of his chest, sprawling 
across the boat. 

Then we pulled up the canvas, and all four of us 
poked our heads out over the off-side, and looked 
down at the water and shivered. The idea, over- 
night, had been that we should get up early in the 
morning, fling off our rugs and shawls, and throwing 
back the canvas, spring into the river with a joyous 
shout, and revel in a long, delicious swim. Some- 
how, now the morning had come, the notion seemed 
less tempting. The water looked damp and chilly; 
the wind felt cold. 

Well, who’s going to be first in? said Harris at 
last. There was no rush for precedence. George 
settled the matter so far as he was concerned by 
retiring into the boat and pulling on his socks. 
Montmorency gave vent to an involuntary howl, as 
148 


Three Men in a Boat. 


if merely thinking of the thing had given him the 
horrors ; and Harris said it would be so difficult to 
get into the boat again, and went back and sorted 
out his trousers. 

I did not altogether like to give in, though I did 
not relish the plunge. There might be snags about, 
or weeds, I thought. I meant to compromise mat- 
ters by going down to the edge and just throwing 
the w::ter over myself; so I took a towel and crept 
out on the bank and wormed my way along on to the 
branch of a tree that dipped down into the water. 

It was bitterly cold. The wind cut like a knife. 
I thought I would not throw the water over myself 
after all. I would go back into the boat and dress ; 
and I turned to do so; and, as I turned, the silly 
branch gave way, and I and the towel went in to- 
gether with a tremendous splash, and I was out 
midstream with a gallon of Thames water inside me 
before I knew what had happened. 

By Jove I old J.’s gone in,” I heard Harris say, 
as I came blowing to the surface. “ I didnft think 
he’d have the pluck to do it. Did you?” 

Is it all right? ” sun^ out George. 

“ Lovely,” I spluttered back. “ You are duffers 
not to come in. I wouldn’t have missed this for 
worlds. Why won’t you try it? It only wants a 
little determination.” 

But I could not persuade them. 

Rather an amusing thing happened while dressing 
that morning. I very cold when I got hick 

W 


Three Men in a Boat, 


into the boat, and in my hurry to get my shirt on^ 
I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me 
awfully wild, especially as George burst out laugh- 
ing. I could not see anything to laugh at, and I 
told George so, and he only laughed the more. I 
never saw a man laugh so much. I quite lost my 
temper with him at last, and I pointed out to him 
what a driveling maniac and an imbecile idiot he 
was; but he only roared the louder. And then, 
just as I was landing the shirt, I noticed that it was 
not my shirt at all, but George’s, which I had mis- 
taken for mine ; whereupon the humor of the thing 
struck me for the first time, and I began to laugh. 
And the more I looked from George’s wet shirt to 
George, roaring with laughter, the more I was 
amused, and I laughed so much that I had to let the 
shirt fall back into the water again. 

‘^Aren’t you — you going to get it out?’’ said 
George, between his shrieks. 

I could not answer him at all for awhile, I was 
laughing so, but, at last, between my peals I man- 
aged to jerk out : 

It isn’t my shirt — it’s yours ! ” 

I never saw a man’s face change from lively to 
severe so suddenly in all my life before. 

“What!” he yelled, springing up. “You silly 
cuckoo I Why can’t you be more carefiil what you’re 
doing ? Why the deuce don’t you go and dress on 
the bank ? You’re not fit to be iil a boat, you’re not. 
Gimme the hitcher.” 


150 


Three Men in a Boat. 


I tried to make him see the fun of the thing, but 
he could not. George is very dense at seeing a joke 
sometimes. 

Harris proposed that we should have scrambled 
eggs for breakfast. He said he would cook them. 
It seemed, from his account, that he was very good 
at doing scrambled eggs. He often did them at 
picnics and when out on yachts. He was quite 
famous for them. People who had once tasted his 
scrambled eggs, so we gathered from his conversa- 
tion, never cared for any other food afterward, but 
pined away and died when they could not get them. 
It made our mouths water to hear him talk about the 
things, and we handed him out the stove and the 
frying-pan and all the eggs that had not smashed and 
gone over everything in the hamper, and begged him 
to begin. 

He had some trouble in breaking the eggs — or 
rather not so much trouble in breaking them exactly 
as in getting them into the frying-pan when broken, 
and keeping them off his trousers, and preventing 
them from running up his sleeve ; but he fixed some 
half a dozen into the pan at last, and then squatted 
down by the side of the stove and chivvied them 
about with a fork. » 

It seemed harassing work, so far as George and I 
could judge. Whenever he went near the pan he 
burned himself, and then he would drop everything 
and dance round the stove, flicking his fingers about 
and cursing the things. Indeed, every time George 
151 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and I looked round at him he was sure to be per* 
forming this feat. We thought at first that it was a 
necessary part of the culinary arrangements. 

We did not know what scrambled eggs were, and 
we fancied that it must be some Ked Indian or Sand- 
wich Islands sort of dish that required dances and 
incantations for its proper cooking. Montmorency 
went and put his nose over it once, and the fat 
spluttered up and scalded him, and then he began 
dancing and cursing. Altogether it was one of the 
most interesting and exciting operations I have ever 
witnessed. George and I were both quite sorry when 
it was over. 

The result was not altogether the success that 
Harris had anticipated. There seemed so little to 
show for the business. Six eggs had gone into the 
frying-pan, and all that came out was a tea-spoonful 
of burned and unappetizing-looking mess. 

Harris said it was the fault of the frying-pan, and 
thought it would have gone better if we had had a 
fish-kettle and a gas-stove; and we decided not to 
attempt the dish again until we had those aids to 
housekeeping by us. 

The sun had got more pov/erful by the time we 
had finished breakfast, and the wind had dropped, 
and it was as lovely a morning as one could desire. 
Little was in sight to remind us of the nineteenth 
century; and, as we looked out upon the river in 
the morning sunlight, we could almost fancy that 
\he centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famoua 
152 


Three Men in a Boat. 


June morning of 1215 had been drawn aside, and 
that we, English yeoman’s sons in homespun cloth, 
with dirk at belt, were waiting there to witness the 
writing of that stupendous page of history, the 
meaning whereof was to be translated to the com- 
mon people some four hundred and odd years later 
by one Oliver Cromwell, who had deeply studied it. 

It is a fine summer morning— sunny, soft, and 
still. But through the air there runs a thrill of 
coming stir. King John has slept at Duncroft 
Hall, and all the day before the little town of 
Staines has echoed to the clang of armed men, and 
the clatter of great horses over its rough stones, and 
the shouts of captains, and the grim oaths and surly 
]ests of bearded bowmen, billmen, pikemen, and 
strange-speaking foreign spearmen. 

Gay-cloaked companies of knights and squires 
have ridden in, all travel-stained and dusty. And 
all the evening long the timid townsmen's doors 
have had to be quick opened to let in rough groups 
of soldiers, for whom there must be found both 
board and lodging, and the best of both, or wee 
betide the house and all within; for the sword is 
judge and jury, plaintiff and executioner, in these 
tempestuous times, and pays for what it takes by 
sparing those from whom it takes it, if it pleases to 
do so. 

Round the camp-fire in the market-place gather 
still more of the barons’ troops, and eat and drink 
deep, and bellow forth roistering drinking songs, 
153 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and gamble and quarrel as the evening grows and 
deepens into night. The firelight sheds quaint 
shadows on their piled-up arms and on their uncouth 
forms. The children of the town steal round to 
watch them, wondering; and brawny coimtry 
wenches, laughing, draw near to bandy ale-house 
jest and jibe with the swaggering troopers, so un- 
like the village swains, who, now despised, stand 
apart behind, with vacant grins upon their broad 
peering faces. And out from the fields around, 
glitter the faint lights of more distant camps, as 
here some great lord’s followers lie mustered, and 
there false John’s French mercenaries hover like 
crouching wolves without the town. 

And so, with sentinel in each dark street, and 
twinkling watch-fires on each height around, the 
night has worn away, and over this fair valley of 
old Thames has broken the morning of the great 
day that is to close so big with the fate of ages yet 
unborn. 

Ever since gray dawn in the lower of the two 
islands, just above where we are standing, there has 
been great clamor, and the sound of many workmen. 
The great pavilion brought there yester eve is 
being raised, and carpenters are busy nailing tiers 
of seats, while ^prentices from London town are 
there with many-colored stuffs and silks and cloth 
of gold and silver. 

And now, lol down upon the road that winds 
along the river’s bank from Staines there come 

154 


lliree Man in a Boat. 


toward us, laughing and talking together in deep 
guttural bass, a half score of stalwart halbertmen — 
barons’ men, these — and halt at a hundred yards or 
so above us, on the other bank, and lean upon their 
arms and wait. 

And so, from hour to hour, march up along the 
road ever fresh groups and bands of armed men, 
their casques and breastplates flashing back the long 
low lines of morning sunlight, until, as far as eye 
ean reach, the way seems thick with glittering steel 
and prancing steeds. And shouting horsemen are 
galloping from group to group, and little banners 
are fluttering lazily in the warm breeze, and every 
now and then there is a deeper stir as the ranks 
make way on either side, and some great baron on 
his war-horse, with his guard of squires around him, 
passes along to take his station at the head of his 
serfs and vassals. 

And up the slope of Cooper’s Hill, just opposite, 
are gathered the wondering rustics and curious 
townsfolk, who have run from Staines, and none are 
quite sure what the bustle is about, but each one has 
a difierent version of the great event that they have 
come to see ; and some say that much good to all the 
people will come from this day’s work ; but the old 
men shake their heads, for they have heard such 
tales before. 

And all the river down to Staines is dotted with 
small craft and boats and tiny coracles — which last 
are growing out of favor now, and are used only by 
155 


Three Men in a Boat. 


the poorer folk. Over the rapids, where in after years 
trim Bell Wear Lock will stand, they have been 
forced or dragged by their sturdy rowers, and now 
are crowding up as near as they dare come to the 
great covered barges, which lie in readiness to bear 
King John to where the fateful Charter waits his 
signing. 

It is noon, and we and all the people have been 
waiting patiently for many an hour, and the rumor 
has run round that slippery John has again escaped 
from the barons’ grasp, and has stolen away from 
Duncroffc Hall with his mercenaries at his heels, and 
will soon be doing other work than signing charters 
for his people’s liberty. 

Not sol This time the grip upon him has been 
one of iron, and he has slid and wriggled in vain. 
Far down the road a little cloud of dust has risen, 
and draws nearer and grows larger, and the pattering 
of many hoofs grows louder, and in and out between 
the scattered groups of drawn-up men, there pushes 
on its way a brilliant cavalcade of gay-dressed lords 
and knights. And front and rear, and either flank, 
there ride the yeomen of the barons, and in the 
midst King John. 

He rides to where the barges lie in readiness, and 
the great barons step forth from their ranks to meet 
him. He greets them with a smile and laugh, and 
pleasant honeyed words, as though it were some 
feast in his honor to which he had been invited 
But as he rises to dismount, he casts one hurried 
156 


Three Men in a Boat. 


glance from his own French mercenaries drawn up 
in the rear to the grim ranks of the baron’s men 
that hem him in. 

Is it too late ? One fierce blow at the unsuspect- 
ing horseman at his side, one cry to his French 
troops, one desperate charge upon the unready lines 
before him, and these rebellious barons might rue 
the day they dared to thwart his plans I A bolder 
hand might have turned the game even at that point. 
Had it been a Ei chard there I the cup of liberty 
might have been dashed from England’s lips, and 
the taste of freedom held back for a hundred years. 

But the heart of King John sinks before the stern 
faces of the English fighting men, and the arm of 
King John drops back on to his rein, and he dis- 
mounts and takes his seat in the foremost barge. 
And the barons follow in, with each mailed hand 
upon the sword-hilt, and the word is given to let go. 

Slowly the heavy, bright-decked barges leave the 
shore of Kunningmede. Slowly against the swift 
current they work their ponderous way, till, with a 
low grumble, they grate against the bank of the 
little island that from this day will bear the name of 
Magna Charta Island. And King John has stepped 
upon the shore, and we wait in breathless silence till 
a great shout cleaves the air, and the great corner- 
stone in England’s temple of liberty has, now we 
know, been firmly laid. 


im 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Henry VIII. and Annie Boleyn.— Disadrantages of Hying in same 
house with pair of lovers.— A tr3dng time for the English 
nation.— A night search for the picturesque. — Homeless and 
houseless. — Harris prepares to die.— An angel comes along. — 
Effect of sudden joy on Harris —A little supper.— Lunch. — 
High price for mustard.— A fearful battle. — Maidenhead. — 
Sailing.— Three Fishers.— We are cursed. 

I WAS sitting on the bank, conjuring up this scene 
to myself, when George remarked that when I 
was quite rested, perhaps I would not mind helping 
to wash up ; and, thus recalled from the days of the 
glorious past to the prosaic present, with all its 
misery and sin, I slid down into the boat and cleaned 
out the frying-pan with a stick of wood and a tuft of 
grass, polishing it up finally with George’s wet shirt. 

We went over to Magna Charta Island, and had 
a look at the stone which stands in the cottage there 
and on which the great Charter is said to have been 
signed ; though, as to whether it really was signed 
there, or, as some say, on the other bank at Eun- 
ningmede, I decline to commit myself. As far as 
my own personal opinion goes, however, I am in- 
clined to give weight to the popular island theory. 

Certainly, had I been one of the barons, at the 
time, I should have strongly urged upon my com- 
rades the advisability of our getting such a slippery 
customer as King John on to the island, where there 
WRS le^ ch^ce of surprises and tricks. 

158 


Three Men in a Boat. 


There are the ruins of an old priory in the grounds 
of Ankerwyke House, which is close to Picnic Point, 
and it was round about the grounds of this old priory 
that Henry VIII. is said to have waited for and met 
Anne Boleyn. He also used to meet her at Hever 
Castle in Kent, and also somewhere near St. Albans. 
It must have been difficult for the people of England 
in those days to have found a spot wffiere these 
thoughtless young folk were not spooning. 

Have you ever been in a house where there are a 
couple courting? It is most trying. You think you 
will go and sit in the drawing-room, and you march 
off there. As you open the door, you hear a noise 
as if somebody had suddenly recollected something, 
and, when you get in, Emily is over by the window, 
full of interest in the opposite side of the road, and 
your friend John Edward is at the other end of the 
room with his whole soul held in thrall by photo- 
graphs of other people^s relatives. 

“Oh I” you say, pausing at the door, “I didnT 
know anybody was here.” 

“Oh I didn’t you?” says Emily coldly, in a tone 
which implies that she does not believe you. 

You hang about for a bit, then you say : 

“ It’s very dark. Why don’t you light the gas ? ” 
John Edward says, “Oh I” he hadn’t noticed it; 
and Emily says that papa does not like the gas 
lighted in the afternoon. 

You tell them one or two items of news, and give 
them your views and opinions on the Irish question ; 

159 


Three Men in a jJjj.':. 


but this does not appear to interest them. All they 
remark on any subject is, ^^Oh!’’ ^^Isit?” “Did 
hel^^ “Yes,” and “You donTsayso!” And, after 
ten minutes of such style of conversation, you edge 
up to the door, and slip out, and are surprised to 
find that the door immediately closes behind you, 
and shuts itself, without your having touched it. 

Half an hour later you think you will try a pipe 
in the conservatory. The only chair in the place is 
occupied by Emily; and John Edward, if the lan- 
guage of clothes can be relied upon, has evidently 
been sitting on the floor. They do not speak, but 
they give you a look that says all that can be said 
in a civilized community ; and you back out promptly 
and shut the door behind you. 

You are afraid to poke your nose into any room 
in the house now; so, after walking up and down the 
stairs for awhile, you go and sit in your own bed- 
room. This becomes uninteresting, however, after a 
time, and so you put on your hat and stroll out into 
the garden. You walk down the path, and as you 
pass the summer-house, you glance in, and there are 
those two young idiots, huddled up into one corner 
of it ; and they see you, and are evidently under the 
idea that, for some wicked purpose of your own, you 
are following them about. 

“ Why don’t they have a special room for this sort 
of thing, and make people keep to it?” you mutter; 
and you rush back to the hall and get your umbrella 
and go out. 


160 


Three Men in a Boat. 


must have been much like this when that 
foolish boy Henry VIII. was courting his little Anne. 
People in Buckinghamshire would have come upon 
them unexpectedly when thev were mooning round 
Windsor and Wraysbury, and have exclaimed, Oh ! 
you here I and Henry would have blushed and said, 
“Yes; he^d just come over to see a man; ’ and Anne 
would have said, “ Oh, Pm so glad to see you I Isn’t 
it funny? I’ve just met Mr. Henry VIII. in the 
lane, and he’s going the same way I am.” 

Then those people would have gone away and said 
to themselves : “ Oh I we’d better get out of here 
while this billing and cooing is on. We’ll go down 
to Kent.” 

And they would go to Kent, and the first thing 
they would see in Kent, when they got there, would 
be Henry and Anne fooling round Hever Castle. 

“ Oh, drat this I ” they would have said. “ Here, 
let’s go away. I can’t stand any mo’-e of it. Let’s 
go to St. Albans — nice, quiet place, St. Albans.” 

And when they reach St. Albans, there would be 
that wretched couple, kissing under the abbey walls. 
Then these folks would go and be pirates until the 
marriage was over. 

From Picnic Point to Old Windsor Lock is a de- 
lightful bit of river. A shady road, dotted here and 
there with dainty little cottages, runs by the bank 
up to the Bells of Ouseley, a picturesque inn, as most 
up-river inns are, and a place where a very good glass 
of ale may be drunk — so Harris says; and on a 
11 161 


Three Men in a Boat. 


matter of this kind you can take Harris^ word. Old 
Windsor is a famous spot in its way. Edward the 
Confessor had a palace here, and here the great Earl 
Godwin was proved guilty by the justice of that 
age of having encompassed the death of the king’s 
brother. Earl Godwin broke a piece of bread and 
held it in his hand. 

‘‘ If I am guilty,” said the earl, may this bread 
choke me when I eat it I ’’ 

Then he put the bread into his mouth and swal- 
lowed it, and it choked him, and he died. 

After you pass old Windsor, the river is somewhat 
uninteresting, and does not become itself again until 
you are nearing Boveney. George and I towed up 
past the Home Park, which stretches along the right 
bank from Albert to Victoria Bridge; and as we 
were passing Datchet, George asked me if I remem- 
bered our first trip up the river, and when we landed 
at Datchet at ten o’clock at night, and wanted to go 
to bed. 

I answered that I did remember it. It will be 
some time before I forget it. 

It was the Saturday before the August Bank 
Holiday. We were tired and hungry, we same 
three, and when we got to Datchet we took out 
the hamper, the two bags, and the rugs and coats, 
and such like things, and started off to look for 
diggings. We passed a very pretty little hotel, with 
clematis and creeper over the porch ; but there was 
no honeysuckle about it, and fojc some reason or 
162 


Three Men in a Boat. 


other, I had got my mind fixed on honeysuckle, 
and I said : 

Oh, don^t let’s go in there I Let’s go on a bit 
further, and see if there isn’t one with honeysuckle 
over it.” 

So we went on till we came to another hotel. 
That was a very nice hotel, too, and it had honey- 
suckle on it, round at the side ; but Harris did not 
like the look of a man who was leaning against the 
front door. He said he didn’t look a nice man at 
all, and he wore ugly boots ; so we went on further. 
We went a goodish way without coming across any 
more hotels, and then we met a man, and asked him 
to direct us to a few. 

He said : 

'‘Why, you are coming away from them. You 
must turn right round and go back, and then you 
will come to the Stag.’ 

We said : 

" Oh, we have been there, and didn’t like it — no 
honeysuckle over it.” 

"Well, then,” he said, "there’s the Manor House, 
just opposite. Have you tried that? ” 

Harris replied that we did not want to go there — 
didn’t like the looks of a man who was stopping 
there — Harris did not like the color of his hair, 
didn’t like his boots, either. 

" Well, I don’t know what you’ll do, I’m sure,” 
said our informant; "because they are the only two 
ijins in the place.” 


163 


Three Men in a Boat. 


No other inns I exclaimed Harris. 

None/’ replied the man. 

What on earth are we to do? ” cried Harris. 

Then George spoke up. He said Harris and I 
could get a hotel built for us, if we liked, and have 
some people made to put in. For his part, he was 
going back to the Stag. 

The greatest minds never realize their ideals in 
any matter; and Harris and I sighed over the 
hollowness of all earthly desires, and followed George. 

We took our traps into the Stag, and laid them 
down in the hall. 

The landlord came up and said : 

Good-evening, gentlemen.” 

Oh, good-evening,” said George ; we want three 
beds, please.” 

‘Wery sorry, sir,” said the landlord; “but I’m 
afraid we can’t manage it.” 

“Oh, well, never mind,” said George, “two will 
do. Two of us can sleep in one bed, can’t we ? ” he 
continued, turning to Harris and me. 

Harris said, “ Oh, yes ;” he thought George and I 
could sleep in one bed very easily. 

“Very sorry, sir,” again repeated the landlord; 
“ but we really haven’t got a bed vacant in the whole 
house. In fact, we are putting two, and even three 
gentlemen in one bed, as it is.” 

This staggered us for a bit. 

But Harris, who is an old traveler, rose to the occa- 
sion, and laughing cheerily, said : 

m 


Oh, well, we can’t help it. We must rough it. You 
must give us a shake-down in the billiard-room.” 
“Very sorry, sir. Three gentlemen sleeping on 
the billiard-table already, and two in the coffee-room. 
Can’t possibly take you in to-night.” 

We picked up our things, and went over to the 
Manor House. It was a pretty little place. I said 
I thought I should like it better than the other 
house ; and Harris said, “ Oh, yes,” it would be all 
right, and we needn’t look at the man with the red 
hair ; besides, the poor fellow couldn’t help having 
red hair. 

Harris spoke quite kindly and sensibly about it. 
The people at the Manor House did not wait to 
hear us talk. The landlady met us on the doorstep 
with the greeting that we were the fourteenth party 
she had turned away within the last hour and a half. 
As for our meek suggestions of stables, billiard-room, 
or coal-cellars, she laughed them all to scorn; all 
these nooks had been snatched up long ago. 

Did she know of any place in the whole village 
where we could get shelter for the night ? 

“Well, if we didn’t mind roughing it — she did not 
recommend it, mind — but there was a little beer shop 

half a mile down the Eton Road ” 

We waited to hear no more; we caught up the 
hamper and the bags, and the coats and rugs, and 
parcels, and ran. The distance seemed more like a 
mile than half a mile, but we reached the place at 
last, and rushed, panting, into the bar. 

165 


•Three Men in a Boat. 


The people at the beer shop were rude. They 
merely laughed at us. There were only three beds 
in the whole house, and they had seven single gen- 
tlemen and two married couples sleeping there 
already. A kind-hearted bargeman, however, who 
happened to be in the tap-room, thought we might 
try the grocer’s next door to the Stag, and we went 
back. 

The grocer’s was full. An old woman we met in 
the shop then kindly took us along with her for a 
quarter of a mile, to a lady friend of hers, whc 
occasionally let rooms to gentlemen. 

This old woman walked very slowly, and we were 
twenty minutes getting to her lady friend’s. She 
enlivened the journey by describing to us, as we 
trailed along, the various pains she had in her back. 

Her lady friend’s rooms were let. From there we 
were recommended to No. 27. No. 27 was full, and 
sent us to No. 32, and 32 was full. 

Then we went back into the highroad, and Harris 
sat down on the hamper and said he would go no 
further. He said it seemed a quiet spot, and he 
would like to die there. He requested George and 
me to kiss his mother for him, and to tell all his 
relations that he forgave them and died happy. 

At that moment an angel came in the disguise of 
a small boy (and I cannot think of any more effective 
disguise an angel could have assumed), with a can 
of beer in one hand, and in the other something at 
the end of a string, which he let down on to every 
166 


Three Men in a Boat. 


fiat stone be came across, and then pulled up again, 
this producing a peculiarly unattractive sound, sug 
gestive of suffering. 

Vd asked this heavenly messenger (as we dis- 
ccvered him afterward to be) if he knew of any 
lonely house, whose occupants were few and feeble 
(rdd ladies or paralyzed gentlemen preferred), v/ho 
couid be easily frightened into giving up their beds 
for the night to three desperate men ; or, if not this, 
could he recommend us to an empty pigsty, or a 
disused limekiln, or anything of that sort. He did 
not know of any such place — at least, not one handy ; 
but he said that, if we liked to come with him, his 
mother had a room to spare, and could put us up 
for the night. 

We fell upon his neck there in the moonlight and 
blessed him, and it would have made a very beautiful 
picture if the boy himself had not been so over- 
powered by our emotion as to be unable to sustain 
himself under it, and sunk to the ground, letting us 
all down on top of him. Harris was so overcome 
with joy that he fainted, and had to seize the boy’s 
beer-can and half-empty it before he could recover 
consciousness, and then he started off at a run, and 
left George and me to bring on the luggage. 

It was a little four-roomed cottage where the boy 
lived, and his mother good soul! — gave us hot 
bacon for supper, and we ate it all — five pounds — 
and a jam tart afterward, and two pots of tea, and 
then we went to bed. There were two beds in the 
167 


Three Men in a Boat. 


room; one was a 2fb. Gin. truckle-bed, and George 
and I slept in that, and kept in by tying ourselves 
together with a sheet ; and the other was the little 
boy^s bed, and Harris had that all to himself, and 
we found him in the morning, with two feet of bare 
leg sticking out at the bottom, and George and I 
used it to hang the towels on while we bathed. 

We were not so uppish about what sort of hotel 
we would have next time we went to Datchet. 

To return to our present trip; nothing exciting 
happened, and we tugged steadily on to a little below 
Monkey Island, where we drew up and lunched. 
We tackled the cold beef for lunch, and then we 
found that we had forgotten to bring any mustard. 
I don’t think I ever in my life, before or since, felt 
I wanted mustard as badly as I felt I wanted it then. 
I don’t care for mustard as a rule, and it is very 
seldom that I take it at all, but I would have given 
worlds for it then. 

I don’t know how many worlds there may be in 
the universe, but any one who had brought me a 
spoonful of mustard at that precise moment could 
have had them all. I grow reckless like that when 
I want a thing and can’t get it. 

Harris said he would have given worlds for mus- 
tard too. It would have been a good thing for any- 
body who had come ’■ to the spot with a can of 
mustard then ; he aid have been set up in worlds 
for the rest of his life. 

But there I I dare say both Harris and I would 

X68 


Three Men in a Boat. 


have tried to back out of the bargain after we had 
got the mustard. One makes these extravagant 
offers in moments of excitement, but, of course, 
when one comes to think of it, one sees how absurdly 
out of proportion they are with the value of the 
required article. I heard a man, going up a moun- 
tain in Switzerland, once say he would give worlds 
for a glass of beer, and when he came to a little 
shanty where they kept it, he kicked up a most fear- 
ful row because they charged him five francs for a 
bottle of Bass. He said it was a scandalous imposi- 
tion, and he wrote to the Times about it. 

It cast a gloom over the boat, there being no mus- 
tard. We eat our beef in silence. Existence seemed 
hollow and uninteresting. We thought of the happy 
days of childhood, and sighed. We brightened up a 
bit, however, over the apple-tart, and, when George 
drew out a tin of pineapple from the bottom of the 
hamper, and rolled it into the middle of the boat, we 
felt that life was worth living after all. 

We are very fond of pineapple, all three of us. He 
looked at the picture on the tin ; we thought of the 
juice. We smiled at one another, and Harris got a 
spoon ready. 

Then we looked for the knife to open the tin with. 
We turned out everything i. +he hamper. We turned 
out the bags. We pulled up uow boards at the bot- 
tom of the boat. We took everything out on to the 
bank and shook it. There was no tin-opener to be 
found. 


169 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Then Harris tried to open the tin with a pocket- 
knife, and broke the knife and cui himself badly ; 
and George tried a pair of scissors, and the scissors 
ilew up, and nearly put his eye out. While they 
were dressing their wounds, I tried to make a hole in 
the thing with the spiky end of the hitcher, and the 
hitcher slipped and jerked me out between the boat 
and the bank into two feet of muddy water, and the 
tin rolled over, uninjured, and broke a tea-cup. 

Then we all got mad. We took that tin out on 
the bank, and Harris went up into a field and got a 
big sharp stone, and I went back into the boat and 
brought out the mast, and George held the tin and 
Harris held the sharp end of his stone against the 
top of it, and I took the mast and poised it high in 
the air, and gathered up all my strength and brought 
it down. 

It was George^s straw hat that saved his life that 
day. He keeps that hat now (what is left of it), and 
of a winter^s evening, when the pipes are lighted 
and the boys are telling stretchers about the dangers 
they have passed through, George brings it down and 
shows it round, and the stirring tale is told anew, 
with fresh exaggerations every time. 

Harris got off with merely a flesh wound. 

After that I took the tin off myself, and hammered 
at it with the mast till I was worn out and sick at 
heart, whereupon Harris took it in hand. 

We beat it out flat, we beat it back square; we 
battered it into every form known to geometry — ^but 
170 


Three Men in a Boat. 


we could not make a hole in it. Then George went 
at it, and knocked it into a shape so strange, so 
weird, so unearthly in its wild hideousness, that 
he got frightened and threw away the mast. Then 
we all three sat round it on the grass and looked 
at it. 

There was one great dent across the top that had 
the appearance of a mocking grin, and it drove us 
luricr.3, so that Harris rushed at the thing, and 
caught it up, and flung it far into the middle of the 
river, and as it sunk we hurled our curses at it, and 
we got into the boat and rowed away from the spot, 
and never paused till we reached Maidenhead. 

Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It 
is the haunt of the river swell and his overdressed 
female companion. It is the town of showy hotels, 
patronized chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. It is 
the witch’s kitchen from which go forth those demons 
of the river — steam launches. The ‘‘ London Jour- 
nal ” duke always has his little place ” at Maiden- 
head; and the heroine of the three-volume novel 
always dines there when she goes out on the spree 
with somebody else’s husband. 

We went through Maidenhead quickly, and then 
eased up, and took leisurely that grand reach beyond 
Boulter’s and Cookham locks. Clieveden Woods 
still wore their dainty dress of spring, and rose up, 
from the water’s edge, in one long harmony of blended 
shades of fairy green. In its unbroken loveliness 
this is, perhans, the Sweetest stretch of all the ri’'.rr. 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and lingeringly we slowly drew our little boat away 
from its deep peace. 

We pulled up in the backwater, just below Cook- 
ham, and had tea ; and when we were through the 
lock, it was evening. A stiffish breeze had sprung 
up— “in our favor, for a wonder ; for, as a rule on the 
river, the wind is always dead against you whatever 
way you go. It is against you in the morning, when 
you start for a day’s trip, and you pull a long dis- 
tance, thinking how easy it will be to come back with 
the sail. Then, after tea, the wind veers round, and 
you have to pull hard in its teeth all the way home. 

When you forget to take the sail at all, then the 
wind is constantly in your favor both ways. But 
there I this world is only a probation, and man was 
born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. 

This evening, however, they had evidently made 
a mistake, and had put the wind round at our back 
instead of in our face. We kept very quiet about it, 
and got the sail up quickly before they found it out, 
and then we spread ourselves about the boat in 
thoughtful attitudes, and the sail bellied out, and 
strained, and grumbled at the mast, and the boat flew. 

I steered. 

There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than 
sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to 
yet— except in dreams. The wings of the rushing 
wind seem to be bearing you onward, you know not 
where. You are no longer the low, plodding, puny 
thing of clay, creeping tortuously upon the ground • 
A72 


Three Men in a Boat. 


you are a part of Nature I Your heart is throbbing 
against hers I Her glorious arms are round you^ 
raising you up against her heart I Your spirit is at 
one with hers ; your limbs grow light I The voices 
of the air are singing to you. The earth seems far 
away and little ; and the clouds, so close above your 
head, are brothers, and you stretch your arms to them. 

We had the river to ourselves, except that far in 
the distance, we could see a fishing-punt, moored 
in midstream, on which three fishermen sat ; and 
we skimmed over the water, and passed the wooded 
banks, and no one spoke. 

I was steering. 

As we drew nearer, we could see that the three men 
fishing seemed old and solemn-looking men. They 
sat on three chairs in the punt, and watched intently 
their lines. And the red sunset threw a mystic light 
upon the waters, and tinged with fire the towering 
woods, and made a golden glory of the piled-up 
clouds. It was an hour of deep enchantment, of 
ecstatic hope and longing. The little sail stood out 
against the purple sky, the gloaming lay around us, 
wrapping the world in rainbow shadows ; and behind 
us, crept the night. 

We seemed like knights of some old legend, sailing 
across some mystic lake into the unknown realm of 
twilight, unto the great land of the sunset. 

We did not go into the realm of twilight; we went 
slap into that punt, where those three old men were 
fishing. We did not know what had happened at 
173 


Tkree Men iii a Boat. 


first, because the sail shut out the view, but from the 
nature of the language that rose up upon the evening 
air, we gathered that we had come into the neighbor- 
hood of human beings, and that they were vexed and 
discontented. 

Harris let the sail down, and then we saw what 
had happened. We had knocked those three old 
gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap at the 
bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and 
painfully sorting themselves out from each other, and 
picking fish off themselves; and as they worked, 
they cursed us — not with a common cursory curse, 
but with long, carefully thought-out, comprehensive 
curses, that embraced the whole of our career, and 
went away into the distant future, and included all 
our relations, and covered everything connected with 
us — good, substantial curses. 

Harris told them they ought to be grateful for a 
little excitement, sitting there fishing all day, and he 
also said that he was shocked and grieved to hear 
men of their age give way to temper so. 

But it did not do any good. 

George said he would steer, after that. He said a 
mind like mine ought not to be expected to give 
itself away in steering boats — ^better let a mere com- 
monplace human being see after that boat, before we 
jolly well all got drowned ; and he took the lines, 
and brought us to Marlow. 

And at Marlow we left the boat by the bridge, and 
went and put up for the night at the Crown. 

174 


Three Men' in a Boat. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

barlow.— -Bisham Abbey. — The Medmenhara Monks.— Montmo* 
mcy thinks he will murder an old Tom cat. — But eventually 
acides that he will let it live. — Shameful conduct of a fox- 
errier at the Civil Service Stores.— Our departure from Mario r. 
— An imposing procession. — The steam launch, useful recipes 
tor annoying and hindering it. — We decline to drink the river. 
— A peaceful dog. — Strange disappearance of Harris and a pie. 

M AELOW is one of the pleasant river centers 1 
know of. It is a bustling, lively little town ; 
not very picturesque on the whole, it is true, hut 
there are many quaint nooks and corners to he found 
in it, nevertheless — standing arches in the shattered 
bridge of Time, over which our fancy travels hack to 
the days when Marlow Manor owned Saxon Algar 
for its lord, ere conquering William seized it to give 
to Queen Matilda, ere it passed to the Earls of War- 
wick or to worldly wise Lord Paget, the councilor of 
four successive sovereigns. 

There is a lovely country round about it, too, if, 
after boating, you are fond of a walk, while the river 
itself is at its best here. Do'wm to Cookham, past the 
Quarry Woods and the meadows, is a lovely reach. 
Dear old Quarry Woods I with your narrow, climbing 
paths, and little winding glades, how scented to this 
hour you seem with memories of sunny summer 
days I How haunted are your shadowy vistas with 
the ghosts of laughing faces ! how from your whia- 
175 


Three Men in a Boat. 


pering leaves there softly fall the voices of long 
ago I 

From Marlow up to Sonning is even fairer yet. 
Grand old Bisham Abbey, whose stone walls have 
rung to the shouts of the Knights Templars, and 
which, at one time, was the home of Anne of Cleves, 
and at another of Queen Elizabeth, is passed on the 
right bank just half a mile above Marlow Bridge. 
Bisham Abbey is rich in melodramatic properties. 
It contains a tapestry bed-chamber, and a secret 
room hid high up in the thick walls. The ghost of 
the Lady Holy, who beat her little boy to death, still 
walks there at night, trying to wash its ghostly hands 
clean in a ghostly basin. 

Warwick, the King-Maker, rests there, careless 
now about such trivial things as earthly kings and 
earthly kingdoms; and Salisbury, who did good 
service at Poictiers. Just before you come to the 
abbey, and right on the river’s bank, is Bisham 
Church, and perhaps, if any tombs are worth inspect- 
ing they are the tombs and monuments in Bisham 
Church. It was while floating in his boat under the 
Bisham beeches that Shelley, who was then living at 
Marlow (you can see his house now, in West Street) 
composed “ The Eevolt of Islam.” 

By Hurley Wear, a little higher up, I have often 
thought that I could stay a month without having 
sufficient time to drink in all the beauty of the scene. 
The village of Hurley, five minutes’ walk from the 
lock, is as old a little spot as there is on the rivery 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


dating, as it does, to quote the quaint phraseology of 
those dim days, “ from the times of King Sebert and 
King Offa/^ Just past the wear (going up) is Danes^ 
Field, where the invading Danes once encamped, 
during their march to Gloucestershire ; and a little 
further still, nestling by a sweet corner of the stream, 
is what is left of Medmenham Abbey. 

The famous Medmenham monks, or ‘‘Hell Fire 
Club,’^ as they were commonly called, and of whom 
the notorious Wilkes was a member, were a fraternity 
whose motto was “ Do as you please,’^ .and that invi- 
tation still stands over the ruined doorway of the 
abbey. Many years before this bogus abbey, with its 
congregation of irreverent jesters, was founded, there 
stood upon the same spot a monastery of a sterner 
kind, whose monks were of a somewhat different type 
to the revelers that were to follow them, five hundred 
years afterward. 

The Cistercian monks, whose abbey stood there 
;n the thirteenth century, wore no clothes but rough 
tunics and cowls, and eat no flesh, nor fish, nor eggs. 
They lay upon straw, and they rose at midnight to 
mass. They spent the day in labor, reading, and 
prayer; and over all their lives there fell a silence as 
of death, for no one spoke. 

A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet 
spot, that God had made so bright I Strange that 
Nature^s voices all around them — the soft singing of 
the waters, the whisperings of the river grass, the 
music of the rushing wind — should not have taught 
12 177 


Three Men in a Boat. 


them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened 
there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a 
voice from heaven ; and all day long and through the 
solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and 
they heard it not. 

From Medmenham to sweet Hambledon Lock the 
river is full of peaceful beauty, but, after it passes 
Greenlands, the rather uninteresting-locking river 
residence of my news agent — a quiet, unassuming 
old gentleman, who may often be met with about 
these regions, during the summer months, sculling 
himself along in easy, vigorous style, or chatting 
genially to some old lock-keeper as he passes through 
— until well the other side of Henley, it is somewhat 
bare and dull. 

We got up tolerably early on the Monday morn- 
ing at Marlow, and went for a bath before break- 
fast ; and, coming back, Montmorency made an 
awful ass of himself. The only subject on which 
Montmorency and I have any serious difference of 
opinion is cats. I like cats ; Montmorency does not. 

When I meet a cat I say, ‘‘Poor pussy!’’ and 
stoop down and tickle the side of ite head ; and the 
cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, 
arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my 
trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. When 
Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows 
about it ; and there is enough bad language wasted 
in ten seconds to last an ordinary respectable man 
all his life, with care. 


178 


Three Men in a Boat. 


I do not blame the dog (contenting myself, as a 
rule, with merely clouting his head or throwing 
stones at him) because I take it that it is his nature. 
Fox-terriers are bom with about four times as much 
original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will 
take years and years of patient effort on the part 
of us Christians to bring about any appreciable 
reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature. 

T remember being in the lobby of the Haymarket 
Stores one day, and all round about me were dogs, 
waiting for the return of their owners, who were 
shopping inside. There were a mastiff, and one or 
two collies, and a St. Bernard, a few retrievers and 
Newfoundlands, a boar-hound, a French poodle, 
with plenty of hair round its head, but mangy about 
the middle ; a bull-dog, a few Lowther Arcade sort 
of animals, about the size of rats, and a couple of 
Yorkshire tykes. 

There they sat, patient, good and thoughtful. A 
solemn peacefulness seemed to reign in that lobby. 
An air of calmness and resignation — of gentle sad- 
ness pervaded the room. 

Then a sweet young lady entered, leading a 
meek-looking little fox-terrier, and left him, chained 
up there, between the bull-dog and the poodle. He 
sat and looked about him for a minute. Then he 
cast up his eyes to the ceiling, and seemed, judging 
from his expression, to be thinking of his mother. 
Then he yawned. Then he looked round at the 
other dogs, all silent, grave, and dignified. 

179 


Three Men in a Boat. 


He looked at the hull-dog, sleeping dreamlessly 
on his right. He looked at the poodle, erect and 
haughty, on his left. Then, without a word of 
warning, without the shadow of a provocation, he 
bit that poodle^s near foreleg, and a yelp of agony 
rang through the quiet shades of that lobby. 

The result of his first experiment seemed highly 
satisfactory to him, and he determined to go on and 
make things lively all round. He sprung over the 
poodle, and vigorously attacked a colly, and the 
colly woke up, and immediately commenced a fierce 
and noisy contest with the poodle. Then Foxy 
came back to his own place, and caught the bull-dog 
by the ear, and cried vo ^row him away ; and the 
bull-dog, a curiously impartial iciiimal, ^vent mr 
everything he could reach, including the hall-porter, 
which gave that dear little terrier the opportunity to 
enjoy an uninterrupted fight of his own with an 
equally willing Yorkshire tyke. 

Any one who knows canine nature need hardly be 
told that, by this time, all the other dogs in the 
place were fighting as if their hearths and homes 
depended on the fray. The big dogs fought each 
other indiscriminately; and the little dogs fought 
among themselves, and filled up their spare time by 
biting the legs of the big dogs. 

The whole lobby was a perfect pandemonium, and 
the din was terrific. A crowd assembled outside in 
the Haymarket, and asked if it was a vestry meeting; 
or, if not^ who was being murdered, and why? 

180 


Three Men in a Boat, 


eame with poles and ropes, and tried to separate the 
dogs, and the police were sent for. 

And in the midst of the riot that sweet young lady 
returned, and snatched up that sweet little dog of 
hers (he had laid the tyke up for a month, and had 
on the expression, now, of a new-born lamb) into her 
arms, and kissed him, and asked him if he was 
killed, and what those great nasty brutes of dogs had 
been doing to him; and he nestled up against her, 
and gazed up into her face with a look that seemed 
to say : “ Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come to take me 
away from this disgraceful scene I” 

She said that the people at the Stores had no right 
to allow great savage things like those other dogs to 
be put with respectable people’s dogs, and that she 
had a great mind to summon somebody. 

Such is the nature of fox-terriers ; and, therefore, 
I do not blame Montmorency for his tendency to row 
with cats ; but he wished he had not given way to it 
that morning. 

We were, as I have said, returning from a dip, 
and halfway up the High Street a cat darted out 
jfrom one of the houses in front of him, and began to 
trot across the road. Montmorency gave a cry of 
joy — the cry of a stem warrior who sees his enemy 
given over to his hands — the sort of cry Cromwell 
might have uttered when the Scots came down the 
hill — and flew after his prey. 

His victim was a large black Tom. I never saw a 
larger cat, nor a more disreputable-looking cat. It 
181 


Three Men in a Boat, 


had lost half its tail, one of its ears, and a fairly 
appreciable proportion of its nose. It was a long, 
sinewy -looking animal. It had a calm, contented air 
about it. 

Montmorency went for that poor cat at the rate 
of twenty miles an hour ; but the cat did not hurry 
up— did not seem to have grasped the idea that its 
life was in danger. It trotted quietly on until its 
would-be assassin was within a yard of it, and then 
it turned round and sat down in the middle of the 
road, and looked at Montmorency with a gentle, 
inquiring expression that said : 

“ Yes ! You want me?’’ 

Montmorency does not lack pluck ; but there was 
something about the look of that cat that might 
have chilled the heart of the boldest dog. He 
stopped abruptly, and looked back at Tom. 

Neither spoke; but the conversation that one 
could imagine was clearly as follows : 

The Cat; “ Can I do anything for you?” 
Montmorency : No — no, thanks.” 

The Cat: Don’t you mind speaking, if you 

really want anything, you know ?” 

Montmorency {hacking down the High Street): 
^‘Oh, no — not at all — certainly — don’t you trouble. 
I — I am afraid I’ve made a mistake. I thought I 
knew you. Sorry I disturbed you.” 

The Cat; “Not at all — quite a pleasure. Sure 
you don’t want anything, now ? ” 

182 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Montmorency {still baching^ : "Not at all, thanks 
—not at all. Very kind of you, good morning.’^ 

The Cat : " Good morning.” 

Then the cat rose, and continued his trot; and 
Montmorency, fitting what he calls his tail carefully 
in its groove, came back to us, and took up an un- 
important position in the rear. 

To this day, if you say the word "Cats I” to 
Montmorency, he will visibly shrink and look up 
piteously at you, as if to say : 

" Please don’t.” 

We did our marketing after breakfast, and re- 
victualed the boat for three days. George said we 
ought to take vegetables — that it was unhealthy not 
to eat vegetables. He said they were easy enough 
to cook, and that he would see to that ; so we got 
ten pounds of potatoes, a bushel of peas, and a few 
cabbages. We got a beefsteak pie, a couple of 
gooseberry tarts, and a leg of mutton from the hotel; 
and fruit and cakes, and bread and butter, and jam, 
and bacon and eggs, and other things we foraged 
round about the town for. 

Our departure from Marlow I regard as one of our 
greatest successes. It was dignified and impressive, 
without being ostentatious. We had insisted at all 
the shops we had been to that the things should be 
sent with us then and there. None of your " Yes, 
sir, I will send them off at once: the boy will be 
down before you are, sir I ” and then fooling about on 
183 


Three Men in a Boat. 


the landing-stage, and going back to the shop twice 
to have a row about them, for us. We waited while 
the basket was packed, and took the boy with us. 

We went to a good many shops adopting this 
principle at each one ; and the consequence was that, 
by the time we had finished, we had as fine a col- 
lection of boys with baskets following us around as 
heart could desire; and our final march down the 
middle of the High Street, to the river, must have 
been as imposing a spectacle as Marlow had seen for 
many a long day. 

The order of the procession was as follows : 

Montmorency carrying a stick. 

Two disreputable-looking curs, friends of Montmorency. 

George, carrying coats and rugs, and smoking 
a short pipe. 

Harris, trying to walk with easy grace, while 
carrying a bulged-out Gladstone bag in 
one hand and a bottle of lime-juice 
in the other. 

Green-grocer’s boy and baker’s boy, with baskets. 

Boots from the hotel, carrying hamper. 
Confectioner’s boy, with basket. 

Grocer’s boy, with basket. 

Long-haired dog. 

Cheesemonger’s boy, with basket. 

Odd man, carrying a bag. 

Bosom companion of odd man, with his hands in 
his pockets, smoking a short clay. 

Fruiterer’s boy, with basket. 

Hyself^ carrying three hats and a pair of boots, 
and trying to look^as if 1 didn’t know it. 

Six small boys, and four stray dogs. 

184 


Three Men in a Boat. 


When we got down to the landing-stage, the hoat- 
man said : 

Let me see, sir, was yours a steam launch or a 
house-boat ? ’’ 

On our informing him it was a double-sculling 
skiff, he seemed surprised. 

We had a good deal of trouble with steam launches 
that morning. It was just before the Henley week, 
and they were going up in large numbers ; some by 
themselves, some towing house-boats. I do hate 
steam launches : I suppose every rowing man does. 
I never see a steam launch but I feel I should like to 
lure it to a lonely part of the river, and there, in the 
silence and the solitude, strangle it. 

There is a blatant bumptiousness about a steam 
launch that has the knack of rousing every evil in- 
stinct in my nature, and I yearn for the good old 
days, when you could go about and tell people what 
you thought of them with a hatchet and a bow and 
arrows. The expression on the face of the man who, 
with his hands in his pockets, stands by the stern 
smoking a cigar, is sufficient to excuse a breach of 
the peace by itself ; and the lordly whistle for you to 
get out of the way would, 1 am confident, insure a 
verdict of ^^justifiable homicide” from any jury of 
river men. 

They used to have to whistle for us to get out of 
their way. If I may do so, without appearing boast- 
ful, I think I can honestly say that our one small 
boat, during that week, caused more annoyance and 
185 


Three Men in a Boat. 


delay and aggravation to the steam launches that we 
came across than all the other craft on the river put 
together. 

Steam launch coming I ’’ one of us would cry out, 
on sighting the enemy in the distance; and in an 
instant everything was got ready to receive her. 
I would take the lines, and Harris and George would 
sit down beside me, all of us with our backs to the 
launch, and the boat would drift out quietly into 
midstream. 

On would come the launch, whistling, and on we 
would go, drifting. At about a hundred yards off, 
she would start whistling like mad, and the people 
would come and lean over the side, and roar at us ; 
but we never heard them I Harris would be telling 
us an anecdote about his mother, and George and I 
would not have missed a word of it for worlds. 

Then that launch would give one final shriek of a 
whistle that would nearly burst the boiler, and she 
would reverse her engines, and blow off steam, and 
swing round and get aground ; every one on board 
of it would rush to the bow and yell to us, and the 
people on the bank would stand and shout to us, and 
all the other passing boats would stop and join in<. 
till the whole river for miles up and down was in a 
state of frantic commotion. And then Harris would 
break off in the most interesting part of his narrative, 
and look up with mild surprise, and say to George ; 

^‘Why, George, bless me, if here isn^t a steam 
launch I 

m 


Three Men in a ^ai 


And George would answer : 

“Well, do you know, I thought I heard some* 
thing I 

*Vpon which he would get 'nervous and confused, 
ana not ir^^ow how ^ get the boat out of the way, 
and the people in the launch would crowd round and 
instruct us : 

“ Pull your right — you, you idiot I back with your 
left. No, not you — the other one — leave the lines 
alone, can’t you — now, both together. NOT that 
way. Oh, you 1 ” 

Then they would lower a boat and come to our 
assistance, and after a quarter of an hour’s eifort 
would get us clean out of their way, so that they 
could go on, and we would thank them so much and 
ask them to give us a tow. But they never would. 

Another good way we discovered of irritating the 
aristocratic type of steam launch was to mistake 
them for a bean feast and ask them if they were 
Messrs. Cubit’s lot or the Bermondsey Good Tem- 
plars, and could they lend us a saucepan. 

Old ladies, not accustomed to the river, are always 
intensely nervous of steam launches. I remember 
going up once from Staines to Windsor — a stretch of 
water peculiarly rich in these mechanical monstrosi- 
ties — with a party containing three ladies of this 
description. It was very exciting. At the first 
glimpse of every steam launch that came in view 
they insisted on landing and sitting down on the 
bank until it was out of sight again. They said 
187 


Three Men in a Boat. 


they were very sorry, hut that they owed it to theif 
families not to be foolhardy. 

We found ourselves short of water at Hambledon 
Lock ; so we took our jar and went up to the lock- 
leepefs house to beg for some. 

George was our spokesman. He put on a winning 
smile and said : 

Oh, please could you spare us a little water? ” 
Certainly,’’ replied the old gentleman ; take as 
much as you want and leave the rest.” 

Thank you so much,” murmured George, looking 
about him. Where— where do you keep it? ” 

It’s always in the same place, my boy,” was the 
stolid reply ; ‘‘just behind you.” 

“ I don’t see it,” said George, turning round. 
“Why, bless us, where’s your eyes?” was the 
man’s comment as he twisted George round and 
pointed up and down the stream. “ There’s enough 
of it to see, ain’t there ? ” 

“Oh I” exclaimed George, grasping the idea; “but 
we can’t drink the river, you know.” 

“No, but you can drink some of it,” replied the old 
fellow. “It’s what Fve drunk for the last fifteen 
years.” 

George told him that his appearance after the 
iirse did not seem a sufficiently good advertise- 
ment for the brand, and that he would prefer it out 
n the pump. 

W e got some from a cottage a little higher up. I 
dare say that was only river water if we had known. 

188 


Three Men in a Boat. 


But we did not know, so it was all right. What the 
eye does not see the stomach does not get upset over. 

We tried river water once, later on in the season, 
but it was not a success. We were coming down 
stream, and had pulled up to have tea in a back- 
water near Windsor. Our jar was empty, and it was 
a case of going without our tea or taking water from 
the river. Harris was for chancing it. He said it 
must be all right if we boiled the water. He said 
that the various germs of poisons present in the water 
would be killed by the boiling. So we filled our 
kettle with Thames backwater and boiled it, and very 
careful we were to see that it did boil. 

We had made the tea, and were just settling down 
comfortably to drink it, when George, with his cup 
halfway to his lips, paused and exclaimed : 

‘‘What’s that?” 

“What’s what?” asked Harris and I. 

“Why that? ’’ said George, looking westward. 

Harris and I followed his gaze, and saw, coming 
down toward us on the sluggish current, a dog. It 
was one of the quietest and peacefulest dogs I have 
ever seen. I never met a dog who seemed more 
contented — more easy in its mind. It was floating 
dreamily on its back, with its four legs stuck up 
straight into the air. It was what I should call a 
full-bodied dog, with a well developed chest. On 
he came, serene, dignified, and calm, until he was 
abreast of our boat, and there, among the rushes, h^ 
eased up, and settled down cozily for the evening. 

J89 


Three Men in a Boat. 


George said he didn’t want any tea, and emptied 
his cup into the water. Harris did not feel thirsty, 
either, and followed suit. I had drunk half mine, 
but I wished I had not. 

I asked George if he thought I was likely to have 
typhoid. 

He said: "Oh, no;” he thought I had a very 
good chance indeed of escaping it. Anyhow, I 
should know in about a fortnight, whether I had or 
not. 

We went up the backwater to Wargrave. It is a 
short cut, leading out of the right-hand bank about 
half a mile above Marsh Lock, and is well worth 
taking, being a pretty, shady little piece of stream, 
besides saving nearly half a mile of distance. 

Of course its entrance is studded with posts and 
chains, and surrounded with notice boards, menacing 
all kinds of torture, imprisonment, and death to 
every one who dares set scull upon its waters — I 
wonder some of these riparian boors don’t claim the 
air of the river and threaten every one with forty 
shillings fine who breathes it — ^but the posts and 
chains a little skill will easily avoid ; and as for the 
boards, you might, if you have five minutes to spare, 
and there is nobody about, take one or two of them 
down and throw them into the river. Halfway up 
the backwater, we got out and lunched ; and it was 
during this lunch that George and I received yathejr 
a trying shock. 


m 


Three Men in a, Boat. 


Ilarris received a shock, too ; but I do not think 
Harris’ shock could have been anything like so bad 
as the shock that George and I had over the business. 

You see, it was in this way: we were sitting in a 
meadow, about ten yards from the water’s edge, 
and we had just settled down comfortably to feed. 
Harris had the beefsteak pie between his knees, and 
was carving it, and George and I were waiting with 
our plates ready. 

‘^Have you got a spoon there?’’ says Harris; ‘‘I 
want a spoon to help the gravy with.” 

The hamper was close behind us, and George and 
I both turned round to reach one out. We were 
not five seconds getting it. When we looked round 
again Harris and the pie were gone I 

It was a wide, open field. There was not a tree 
nor a bit of hedge for hundreds of yards. He could 
not have tumbled into the river because we were on 
the water side of him, and he would have had to 
climb over us to do it. 

George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at 
each other. 

" Has he been snatched up to heaven?” I queried. 

"They’d hardly have taken the pie, too,” said 
George. 

There seemed weight in this objection, and we 
discarded the heavenly theory. 

" I suppose the truth of the matter is,” suggested 
(Jeorge, descending to the commonplace and prae 
ticable, "that there has been an earthquake.” 

191 


Three Men in a Boat. 


A.nd then he added, with a touch of sadness in his 
v^ice : ‘‘ I wish he hadn’t been carving that pie.” 
»Vith a sigh, we turned our eyes once more toward 
the spot where Harris and the pie had last been seen 
Oi' earth ; and there, as our blood froze in our veins 
and our hair stood up on end, we saw Harris’ head — 
and nothing but his head — sticking bolt upright 
among the tall grass, the face very red, and bearing 
upon it a7i expression of great indignation I 
Gneorge was the first to recover. 

Sneak I ” he cried, “ and tell us whether you are 
alive or dead — and where is the rest of you? ’’ 

“ Oh, don’t be a stupid ass ! ” said Harris’ head. 
** I believe you did it on purpose.” 

« what ? ” exclaimed George and I. 

“ Whn-, put me to sit here — darn silly trick I Here, 
catch hold of the pie.” 

And out of the middle of the earth, as it seemed to 
us, rose the pie — very much mixed up and damaged; 
and after it, scrambled Harris — tumbled, grubby^ 
and wet. 

He had been sitting, without knowing it, on the 
very verge of a small gully, the long grass hiding it 
from view; and in leaning a little back he had shot 
over, pie and all. He said he had never felt so sur- 
prised in al? his life, as when he first felt himself 
going, without being able to conjecture in the 
slightest what had happened. 

He thought at first that the end of the world had 
come. Harris ’relieves to this day that George and 
192 


Three Men in a Bop.t. 


I planned it all beforehand. Thus does unjust sus- 
picion follow even the most blameless ; for, as the 
poet says, who shall escape calumny? 

Who, indeed I 


ia a Boat. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


f'lTargrave.— Wa7«rorks.— Sonning.— Our Stew.—Montmorency is 
earcastic.— Fight between Montmorency and the teakettle. — 
George’s banjo studies.— Meet with discouragement. — Diffi- 
culties in the way of the musical amateur. — Learning to play 
the bagpipes.— Harris feels sad after supper.— George and I go 
for a walk.— Return hungry and wet. — There is a strangeness 
about Harris —Harris and the swans, a remarkable story.— 
Harris has a troubled night. 


E caught a breeze, after lunch, which took us 


gently up past Wargrave and Shiplake. Mel- 
lowed in the drowsy sunlight of a summer’s after- 
noon, Wargrave, nestling where the river bends, 
makes a sweet old picture as you pass it, and one 
that lingers long upon the retina of memory. 

The George and Dragon at Wargrave boasts a 
sign, painted on one side by Leslie, E. A., and on the 
other by Hodgson of that ilk. Leslie has depicted 
the fight ; Hodgson has imagined the scene, After 
the fight” — George, the work done, enjoying his 
pint of beer. 

Day, the author of Sanford and Merton,” lived 
and — more credit to the place still — was killed at 
Wargrave. In the church is a memorial to Mrs. 
Sarah Hill, who bequeathed £1 annually, to be divided 
at Easter, between two boys and two girls who 
*‘have never been undutiful to their parents; who 
have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, 



194 


Three Men in a Boat, 


to steal, or to break windows. ’’ Fancy giving up 
all that for five shillings a year ! It is not worth it. 

It is rumored in the town that once, many years 
ago, a boy appeared who really never had done these 
things — or at all events, which was all that was re- 
quired or could be expected, had never been known 
to do them — and thus won the crown of glory. He 
was exhibited for three weeks afterward in the town 
hall, under a glass case. 

What has become of the money since no one 
knows. They say it is always handed over to the 
nearest wax-works show. 

Shiplake is a pretty village, but it cannot be seen 
from the river, being upon the hill. Tennyson was 
married in Shiplake Church. 

The river up to Sonning winds in and out through 
many islands, and is very placid, hushed, and lonely. 
Few folk, except at twilight, a pair or two of rustic 
lovers, walk along its bank. ’Arry and Lord Fitz- 
noodle have been left behind at Henley, and dismal, 
dirty Beading is not yet reached. It is a part 
of the river in which to dream of bygone days, and 
vanished forms and faces, and things that might 
have been, but are not, confound them. 

We got out at Sonning, and went for a walk 
round the village. It is the most faiiy^-iike little 
nook on the whole river. It is more like a stage 
village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every 
house is smothered in roses, and now, in early June, 
they were bursting forth in clouds of daint}’ splendor. 


Three Men in a Boat. 


If you stop at Sonning put up at the Bull, behind 
the church. It is a veritable picture of an old 
country inn, with green, square courtyard in front, 
where, on seats beneath the trees, the old men group 
of an evening to drink their ale and gossip over 
village politics; with low, quaint rooms and lat- 
ticed windows, and awkward stairs and winding 
passages. 

We roamed about sweet Sonning for an hour or so# 
and then, it being too late to push on past Beading, 
we decided to go back to one of the Shiplake Islands, 
and put up there for the night. It was still early 
when we got settled, and George said that as we had 
plenty of time, it would be a splendid opportunity to 
try a good, slap-up supper. He said he would show 
us what could be done up the river in the way of 
cooking, and suggested that, with the vegetables and 
the remains of the cold beef and general odds and 
ends, we should make an Irish stew. 

It seemed a fascinating idea. George gathered 
wood and made a fire, and Harris and I started to 
peel the potatoes. I should never have thought that 
peeling potatoes was such an undertaking. The job 
turned out to be the biggest thing of its kind that I 
had ever been in. We began cheerfully, one might 
almost say skittishly, but our lightheartedness was 
gone by the time the first potato was finished. The 
more we peeled, the more peel there seemed to be left 
on ; by the time we had got all the peel off and all 
the eyes out, there was no potato left — at least nt>njf 
196 


Three Men in a Boat. 


worth speaking of. George came and had a look at 
it — it was about the size of a peanut. He said : 

Oh, that won’t do I You’re wasting them. You 
must scrape them.” 

So we scraped them, and that was harder work 
than peeling. They are such an extraordinary shape, 
potatoes — all bumps and warts and hollows. We 
worked steadily for five-and-twenty minutes, and did 
four potatoes. Then we struck. We said we should 
require the rest of the evening for scraping our- 
selves. 

I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping for 
making a fellow in a mess. It seemed difficult to 
believe that the potato-scrapings in which Harris 
and I stood, half smothered, could have come off four 
potatoes. It shows you what can be done with 
economy and care. 

George said it was absurd to have only four pota- 
toes in an Irish stew, so we washed half a dozen or 
so more, and put them in without peeling. We also 
put in a cabbage and about half a peck of peas. 
George stirred it all up, and then he said that there 
seemed to be a lot of room to spare, so we overhauled 
both the hampers, and picked out all the odds and 
ends and the remnants, and added them to the stew. 
There were half a pork pie and a bit of cold boiled 
bacon left, aud we put them in. Then George found 
half a tin of potted salmon, and he emptied that 
into the pot. 

He said that was the advantage of Irish stew ; you 
197 


Three Men in a Boat. 


got rid of such a lot of things. I fished out a couple 
of eggs that had got cracked, and we put those in. 
George said they would thicken the gravy. 

I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing 
was wasted ; and I remember that, toward the end, 
Montmorency, who had evinced great interest in the 
proceedings throughout, strolled away with an earnest 
and thoughtful air, reappearing, a few minutes after- 
ward, with a dead water-rat in his mouth, which he 
evidently wished to present as his contribution to the 
dinner : whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a genu- 
ine desire to assist, I cannot say. 

We had a discussion as to whether the rat should 
go in or not. Harris said that he thought it would 
be all right, mixed up with the other things, and that 
every little helped ; but George stood up for prece- 
dent. He said he had never heard of water-rats in 
Irish stew, and he would rather be on the safe side, 
and not try experiments. 

Harris said : 

“ If you never try a new thing, how can you tell 
what it's like ? It’s men such as you that hamper 
the world’s progress. Think of the man who first 
tried German sausage I ” 

It was a great success, that Irish stew. I don’t 
amk I ever enjoyed a meal more. There was some- 
iiing so fresh and piquant about it. One’s palate 
gets so tired of the old hackneyed things : here was 
a dish with a new flavor, with a taste like nothing 
else on earth. 


198 


Three Men in a Boat. 


And it was nourishing too. As George said, there 
was good stuff in it. The peas and potatoes might 
have been a bit softer, but we all had good teeth, so 
that did not matter much : and as for the gravy, it 
was a poem — a little too rich, perhaps, for a weak 
stomach, but nutritious. 

We finished up with tea and cherry tart. Mont- 
morency had a fight with the kettle during tea-time, 
and came off a poor second. 

Throughout the trip, he had manifested great curi- 
osity concerning the kettle. He would sit and watch 
it, as it boiled, with a puzzled expression, and would 
try and rouse it every now and then by growling at 
it. When it began to splutter and steam, he regarded 
it as a challenge, and would want to fight it, only, at 
that precise moment, some one would always dash up 
and bear off his prey before he could get at it. 

To-day he determined he would be beforehand. 
At the first sound the kettle made, he rose, growling, 
and advanced toward it in a threatening attitude. 
It was only a little kettle, but it was full of pluck, 
and it up and spit at him. 

Ah I would ye I growled Montmorency, showing 
his teeth; “I’ll teach ye to cheek a hard-working, 
respectable dog; ye miserable, long-nosed, dirty- 
looking scoundrel ye. Come on I ” 

And he rushed at the poor little kettle, and seized 
it by the spout. 

Then, across the evening stillness, broke a blood- 
curdling yelp, and Montmorency left the boat, and 
199 


Three Men in a Boat. 


did a constitutional three times around the island at 
the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, stopping every 
now and then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud. 

From that day Montmorency regarded the kettle 
with a mixture of awe, suspicion, and hate. When- 
ever he saw it he would growl and back at a rapid 
rate, with his tail shut down, and the moment it was 
put upon the stove he would promptly climb out of 
the boat and sit on the bank, till the whole tea 
business was over. 

George got out his banjo after supper and wanted 
to play it, but Harris objected ; he said he had got 
a headache, and did not feel strong enough to stand 
it. George thought the music might do him good — 
said music often soothed the nerves and took away a 
headache; and he twanged two or three notes, just 
to show Harris what it was like. 

Harris said he would rather have the headache. 

George has never learned to play the banjo to this 
day. He has had too much all-round discouragement 
to meet. He tried on two or three evenings, while 
we were up the river to get a little practice, but it 
was never a success. Harris’ language used to be 
enough to unnerve any man ; added to which, Motit- 
morency would sit and howl steadily, right through 
the performance. It was not giving the man a fair 
chance. 

“ What’s he want to howl like that for when I’m 
playing?” George would exclaim indignantly . while 
taking aim at him with a boot. 

200 


Three Men in a Boat. 


‘‘What do you want to play like that for when 
he is howling?” Harris would retort, catching the 
boot. “ You let him alone. He can't help howling. 
He’s got a musical ear, and youhe playing makes 
him howl.” 

So George determined to postpone study of the 
banjo until he reached home. But he did not get 
much opportunity even there. Mrs. P. used to come 
up and say she was very sorry — for herself, she liked 
to hear him — but the lady upstairs was in a very 
delicate state, and the doctor was afraid it might 
injure the child. 

Then George tried taking it out with him late at 
night, and practicing round the square. But the 
inhabitants complained to the police about it, and a 
watch was set for him one night, and he was captured. 
The evidence against him was very clear, and he was 
bound over to keep the peace for six months. 

He seemed to lose heart in the business after that. 
He did make one or two feeble efforts to take up the 
work again when the six months had elapsed, but 
there was always the same coldness — the same want 
of sympathy on the part of the world to fight against ; 
and, after awhile, he despaired altogether, and ad- 
vertised the instrument for sale at a great sacrifice — 
“ owner having no further use for same ” — and took 
to learning card tricks instead. 

It must be disheartening work learning 3 musical 
instrument. You would think that Society, for its 
own sake, would do all it could to assist a man to 
^01 


Three Men in a Boat. 


acquire the art of playing a musical instrument. 
But it doesn^t i 

I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to 
play the bagpipes, and you would be surprised at the 
amount of opposition he had to contend with. Why, 
not even from the members of his own family did he 
receive what you could call active encouragement. 
His father was dead against the business from the 
beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the sub- 
ject. My friend used to get up early in the morning 
to practice, but he had to give that plan up, because 
of his sister. She was somewhat religiously inclined, 
and she said it seemed such an awful thing to begin 
the day like that. 

So he sat up at night instead, and played after the 
family had gone to bed, but that did not do, as it 
got the house such a bad name. People, going 
home late, would stop outside to listen, and then 
put it about all over the town, the next morning, that 
a fearful murder had been committed at Mr. Jeffer- 
son’s the night before ; and would describe how they 
had heard the victim’s shrieks and the brutal oaths 
and curses of the murderer, followed by the prayer 
for mercy, and the last dying gurgle of the corpse. 

So they let him practice in the daytime, in the 
back kitchen, with all the doors shut ; but his more 
successful passages could generally be heard in the 
sitting-room, in spite of these precautions, and would 
affect his mother almost to tears. 

She said it put her in mind of her poor father (he 
202 


Three Men in a Boat. 


had been swallowed by a shark, poor man, while 
bathing off the coast of New Guinea — where the con- 
nection came in, she could not explain.) 

Then they knocked up a little place for him at the 
bottom of the garden, about quarter of a mile from 
the house, and made him take the machine down 
there when he wanted to work it; and sometimes a 
visitor would come to the house who knew nothing 
of the matter, and they would forget to tell him all 
about it, and caution him, and he would go out for 
a stroll round the garden and suddenly get within 
ear-shot of those bagpipes, without being prepared 
for it, or knowing what it was. If he were a man of 
strong mind, it only gave him fits ; but a person of 
mere average intellect it usually sent mad. 

There is, it must be confessed, something very sad 
about the early efforts of an amateur in bagpipes. I 
have felt that myself when listening to my young 
friend. They appear to be a trying instrument to 
perform upon. You have to get enough breath for 
the whole tune before you start — at least, so I gath- 
ered from watching Jefferson. 

He would begin magnificently with a wild, full, 
come-to-the-battle sort of a note that quite roused 
you. But he would get more and more piano as he 
went on, and the last verse generally collapsed in the 
middle with a splutter and a hiss. 

You want to be in good health to play the bag- 
pipes. 

Young Jefferson only learned to play one tune on 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


those bagpipes; but I never heard any complaints 
about the insufficiency of his repertoire — none what- 
ever. His tune was '^The Campbells are Coming, 
Hooray — Hooray I so he said, though his father 

always held that it was ‘'The Blue Bells of Scot- 
land.” Nobody seemed quite sure what it was ex- 
actly, but they all agreed that it sounded Scotch. 

Strangers were allowed three guesses, and most of 
them guessed a different tune each time. 

Harris was disagreeable after supper — I think it 
must have been the stew that had upset him ; he is 
not used to high living — so George and I left him in 
the boat, and settled to go for a mouch round Hen- 
ley. He said he should have a glass of whisky and 
a pipe, and fix things up for the night. We were to 
shout when we returned, and he would row over 
from the island and fetch us. 

“Don't go to sleep, old man,” we said as we 
started. 

“ Not much fear of that while this stew’s on,” he 
grunted, as he pulled back to the island. 

Henley was getting ready for the regatta, and was 
full of bustle. We met a goodish number of men we 
knew about the town, and in their pleasant company 
the time slipped by somewhat quickly; so that it 
was nearly eleven o’clock before we set off on our 
four-mile walk home— as we had learned to call onr 
little craft by this time. 

It was a dismal night, coldish, with a thin rain 
204 


Three Men in a Boat. 


falling ; and as we trudged through the dark, silent 
fields talking low to each other, and wondering if we 
were going right or not, we thought of the cozy boat, 
with the bright light streaming through the tight- 
drawn canvas ; of Harris and Montmorency, and the 
whisky, and wished that we were there. 

We conjured up the picture of ourselves inside, 
tired and a little hungry* of the gloomy river and 
the shapeless trees; and, like a giant glow-worm 
underneath them, our dear old boat, so snug and 
warm and cheerful. We could see ourselves at 
supper there, pecking away at cold meat, and pass- 
ing each other chunks of bread ; we could hear the 
cheery clatter of our knives, the laughing voices, 
filling all the space, and overflowing through the 
opening out into the night. And we hurried on to 
realize the vision. 

We struck the tow-path at length, and that made 
us happy; because prior to this we had not been 
sure whether we were walking toward the river or 
away from it, and when you are tired and want to go 
to bed uncertainties like that worry you. We passed 
Shiplake as the clock ’was striking the quarter to 
twelve ; and then George said thoughtfully : 

“ You don’t happen to remember which of the 
islands it was, do you? ” 

‘‘ No,” I replied, beginning to grow thoughtful too, 
‘‘ I don’t. How many are there ? ” 

'^Only four,” answered George. “It will be all 
right if he’s awake.” 


205 


Three Men in a Boat. 


^^And if not?” I queried; but we dismissed that 
train of thought. 

We shouted when we came opposite the first island, 
but there was no response ; so we went to the second, 
and tried there, and obtained the same result. 

Oh I I remember now,” said George ; ‘‘ It was the 
third one.” 

And we ran on hopefully to the third one, and 
hallooed. 

No answer I 

The case was becoming serious. It was now past 
midnight. The hotels at Shiplake and Henley would 
be crammed ; and we could not go round, knocking 
up cottagers and householders in the middle of the 
night, to know if they let apartments ! George sug- 
gested walking back to Henley and assaulting a 
policeman, and so getting a night’s lodging in the 
station-house. But then there was the thought. 

Suppose he only hits us back and refuses to lock 
us up ! ” 

We could not pass the whole night fighting police- 
men. Besides, we did not want to overdo the thing 
and get six months. 

We despairingly tried what seemed in the dark- 
ness to be the fourth island, but met with no better 
success. The rain was coming down fast now, and 
evidently meant to last. We were wet to the skin, 
and cold and miserable. We began to wonder 
whether there were only four islands or more, or 
whether we were near the islands at all, or whether 
206 


Three Men in a Boat. 


we were anywhere within a mile of where we ought 
to be, or in the wrong part of the river altogether, 
everything looked so strange and different in the 
darkness. We began to understand the sufferings of 
the Babes in the Wood. 

Just when we had given up all hope — yes, I know 
that is always the time that things do happen in 
novels and tales ; but I can’t help it. I resolved, 
when I began to write this book, that I would be 
strictly truthful in all things ; and so I will be, 
even if I have to employ hackneyed phrases for the 
purpose. 

It woA just when we had given up all hope, and I 
must therefore say so. Just when we had given up 
all hope, then, I suddenly caught sight, a little way 
below us, of a strange, weird sort of glimmer flicker- 
ing among the trees on the opposite bank. For an 
instant I thought of ghosts ; it was such a shadowy, 
mysterious light. The next moment it flashed across 
me that it was our boat, and I sent up such a yell 
across the water that made the night seem to shake 
in its bed. 

We waited breathless for a minute, and then — 
oh I divinest music of the darkness— we heard the 
answering bark of Montmorency. We shouted back 
loud enough to wake the Seven Sleepers — I never 
could understand myself why it should take more 
noise to wake seven sleepers than one — and, after 
what seemed an hour, but what was really, I suppose, 
about five minutes, we saw the lighted boat creep- 
207 


Three Men in a Boat. 


'ng slowly over the blackness, and heard Harris’ 
wleepy voice asking where we were. 

There was an unaccountable strangeness about 
Harris. It was something more than mere ordinary 
tiredness. He pulled the boat against a part of the 
bank from which it was quite impossible for us to 
get into it, and immediately went to sleep. It took 
us an immense amount of screaming and roaring to 
wake him up again and put some sense into him; 
but we succeeded at last, and got safely on board. 

Harris had a sad expression on him, so we noticed, 
when we got into the boat. He gave you the idea 
of a man who had been through trouble. We asked 
if anything had happened, and he said : 

Swans ! 

It seemed we had moored close to a swan’s nest, 
and soon after George and I had gone, the female 
swan came back, and kicked up a row about it. 
Harris had chivvied her off, and she had gone away, 
and fetched up her old man. Harris said he had 
had quite a fight with these two swans ; but courage 
and skill had prevailed in the end, and he had 
defeated them. 

Half an hour afterward they returned with eight- 
een other swans ! It must have been a fearful battle, 
so far as we could understand Harris’ account of it. 
The swans had tried to drag him and Montmorency 
out of the boat and drown them; and he had defended 
himself like a hero for four hours, and had killed the 
lot, and they had all paddled away to die. 

208 


Three Men in a Boat. 


“How many swans did you say there were?'* 
asked George. 

“ Thirty-two/’ replied Harris sleepily. 

“ You said eighteen just now/’ said George. 

“ No, I didn’t/’ grunted Harris ; “ I said twelve 
Think I can’t count? ” 

What were the real facts about these swans we 
never found out. We questioned Harris on the 
subject in the morning, and he said, “ What swans ? ” 
and seemed to think that George and I had been 
dreaming. 

Oh, how delightful it was to be safe in the boat 
after our trials and fears ! We ate a hearty supper, 
George and I, and we should have had some toddy 
after it if we could have found the whisky, but we 
could not. We examined Harris as to what he had 
done with it, but he did not seem to know what we 
meant by “ whisky,” or what we were talking about 
at all. Montmorency looked as if he knew some- 
thing, but said nothing. 

I slept well that night, and should have slept 
better if it had not been for Harris. I have a vague 
recollection of having been woke up at least a dozen 
times during the night by Harris wandering about 
the boat with a lantern, looking for his clothes. He 
seemed to be worrying about his clothes all night. 

Twice he routed up George and myself to see if 
we were lying on his trousers. George got quite 
wild the second time. 

“What the thunder do you want your trousers 

14 


Three Men in a Boat. 


or in the middle of the night he asked indig- 
nantly. Why don’t you lie down and go to sleep ? ” 
I found him in trouble the next time I awoke be- 
cause he could not find his socks, and my last hazy 
remembrance is of being rolled over on my side and 
of hearing Harris muttering something about its 
being an extraordinary thing where his umbrella 
could have got to. 


SIO 


^ree Men In a !^at. 


CHAPTER XV. 


Household duties.—Love of work.— The old river hand, what he 
does, and what he tells you he has done. — Skepticism of the 
new generation.— Early boating recollections. — Rafting. — 
George does the thing in style.— The old boatman, his method. 
— So calm, so full of peace. — The beginner.— Punting.— A sad 
accident —Pleasures of friendship. — Sailing, my first exper- 
ience.— Possible reason why we were not drowned. 


E woke late the next morning, and, at Harris’ 


earnest desire, partook of a plain breakfast, 
with ‘‘ non dainties.’’ Then we cleaned up, and put 
everything straight (a continual labor, which was 
beginning to afford me a pretty clear insight into 
a question that had often posed me— namely, how a 
woman with the work of only one house on her 
hands manages to pass away her time), and at about 
ten, set out on what we had determined should be a 
good day's journey. 

We agreed that we would pull this morning, as a 
change from towing; and Harris thought the best 
arrangement would be that George and I should 
scull, and he steer. I did not chime in with this 
idea at all ; I said I thought Harris would have been 
showing a more proper spirit if he had suggested 
that he and George should work, and let me rest a 
bit. It seemed to me that I was doing more than 
fair share of the work on this trip, and I was 
fcrcginnmg to feel strongly on the subject. 



211 


I’hree Men in a Boat. 


It always does seem to me that I am doing more 
work than I should do. It is not that I object to 
the work, mind you ; I like work ; it fascinates me. 
I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it 
by me ; the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks 
my heart. 

You cannot give me too much work ; to accumu- 
late work has almost become a passion with me ; my 
study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an 
inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw 
out a wing soon. 

And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of 
the work that I have by me now has been in my pos- 
session for years and years, and there isn’t a finger- 
mark on it. I take a great pride in my work ; I take 
it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps 
bis work in a better state of preservation than I do. 

But though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. 
I do not ask for more than my proper share. 

But I get it without asking for it — at least, so it 
appears to me — and this worries me. 

George says he does not think I need trouble my- 
self on the subject. He thinks it is only my over- 
scrupulous nature that makes me fear I am having 
more than my due ; and that, as a matter of fact, I 
don’t have half as much as I ought. But I expect 
he only says this to comfort me. 

In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed 
idea of each member of the crew that he is doing 
everything. Harris’ notion was, that it was he alone 
212 


Three Men in a Boat. 


who had been working, and that both George and I 
had been imposing upon him. George, on the other 
hand, ridiculed the idea of Harris^ having done any- 
thing more than eat and sleep, and had a cast-iron 
opinion that it was he— George himself— who had 
done all the labor worth speaking of. 

He said he had never been out with such a couple 
of lazy skulks as Harris and L 

That amused Harris. 

“ Fancy old George talking about work I ” he 
laughed ; why, about half an hour of it would kill 
him. Have you ever seen George work?^' he added, 
turning to me. 

I agreed with Harris that I never had — most cer- 
tainly not since we had started on this trip. 

'‘Well, I don’t see how you can know much about 
it, one way or the other,” Gevge retorted on Harris ; 
"for I’m blest if you haven’t been asleep half the 
time. Have you ever seen Harris fully awake except 
at meal time ? ” asked George, addressing me. 

Truth compelled me to support George. Harris 
had been very little good in the boat, so far as help- 
ing was concerned, from the beginning. 

"Well, hang it all, I’ve done more than old J., 
anyhow,” rejoined Harris. 

"Well, you couldn’t very well have done less,” 
added George. 

"I suppose J. thinks he is the passenger,” con- 
tinued Harris. 

4nd that was their gratitude to me for having 

2ia 


Three Men in a Boat 


brought them and their wretched old boat all the 
way up from Kingston, and for having superintended 
and managed everything for them, and taken care of 
them, and slaved for them. It is the way of the 
world. 

We settled the present difficulty by arranging that 
Harris and George should scull up past Reading, and 
that I should tow the boat on from there. Pulling 
a heavy boat against a strong stream has few attrac- 
tions for me now. There was a time, long ago, when 
I used to clamor for the hard work : now I like to 
give the youngsters a chance. 

I notice that most of the old river hands are simi- 
larly retiring, whenever there is any stiff pulling to 
be done. You can always tell the old river hand by 
the way in which he stretches himself out upon the 
cushions at the bottom of the boat, and encourages 
the rowers by telling them anecdotes about the mar* 
velous feats he performed last season. 

** Call what youTe doing hard work I ’’ he drawls, 
between his contented whiffs, addressing the two 
perspiring novices, who have been grinding away 
steadily up stream for the last hour and a half; 
''why, Jim Biffies and Jack and I, last season, pulled 
up from Marlow to Goring in one afternoon — never 
stopped once. You remember that, Jack?’^ 

Jack, who has made himself a bed up in the prow 
of all the rugs and coats he can collect, and who 
has been lying there asleep for the last two hours, 
partially wakes up on being thus appealed to^ and 
. 214 . 


Three Men in a Boat. 


, recollects all about the matter, and also remembers 
that there was an unusually strong stream against 
them all the way— likewise a stiff wind. 

About thirty-four miles, I suppose, it must have 
been,'’ adds the first speaker, reaching down another 
cushion to put under his head. 

No— no ; don’t exaggerate, Tom,” murmurs Jack 
reprovingly ; thirty -three at the outside.” 

And Jack and Tom, quite exhausted by this con- 
versational effort, drop off to sleep once more. And 
the two simple-minded youngsters at the sculls feel 
quite proud of being allowed to row such wonderful 
oarsmen as Jack and Tom, and strain away harder 
than ever. 

When I was a young man. I used to listen to these 
tales from my elders, and ta^e them in, and swallow 
them, and digest every word of them, and then come 
up for more ; but the new generation do not seem to 
have the simple faith of the old times. We — George, 
Harris and myself— took a ‘‘raw ’un” up with us 
once last season, and we plied him with the customary 
stretchers about the wonderful things we had done 
all the way up. 

We gave him all the regular ones — the time 
honored lies that have done duty up the river with 
every boating man for years past — and added seven 
entirely original ones that we had invented for our- 
selves, including a really quite likely story, founded, 
to a certain extent, on an all but true episode, which 
had actually happened in a modified degree some 
215 


Three Men in a Boat. 


years ago to friends of ours — a story that a mere child 
could have believed without injuring itself much. 

And that young man mocked at them all, and 
wanted us to repeat the feats then and there, and to 
bet us ten to one that we didn^t. 

We got to chatting about our rowing experiences 
this morning, and to recounting stories of our first 
efforts in the art of oarsmanship. My own earliest 
boating recollection is of five of us contributing 
threepence each and taking out a curiously con- 
structed craft on the Eegent’s Park lake, drying our- 
selves subsequently in the park-keeper^s lodge. 

After that, having acquired a taste for the water, 
I did a good deal of rafting in various suburban 
brick-fields — an exercise providing more interest 
and excitement than might be imagined, especially 
when you are in the middle of the pond and the 
proprietor of the materials of which the craft is 
constructed suddenly appears on the bank, with a 
big stick in his hand. 

Your first sensation on seeing this gentleman is 
that, somehow or other, you don’t feel equal to 
company and conversation, and that, if you could 
do so without appearing rude, you would rather 
avoid meeting him; and your object is, therefore, to 
get off on the opposite side of the pond to which he 
is, and to go home quietly and quickly, pretending 
not to see him. He, on the contrary, is yearning to 
take you by the hand, and talk to you. 

It appears that he knows your father, and is inti- 
. 216 


Thrco Men in a Boat. 


rcatoly acquainted with yourself, but this does not 
draw you toward him. He says he'll teach you to 
take his boards and make a raft of them ; but, seeing 
that you know how to do this pretty well already, the 
offer, though doubtless kindly meant, seems a super- 
fluous one on his part, and you are reluctant to put 
him to any trouble by accepting it. 

His anxiety to meet you, however, is proof against 
all your coolness, and the energetic manner in which 
he dodges up and down the pond so as to be on the 
spot to greet you when you land is really quite 
flattering. 

If he be of a stout and short-winded build, you 
can easily avoid his advances; but, w^hen he is of tlio 
youthful and long-legged type, a meeting is inevita- 
ble. The interview is, however, extremely brief, most 
of the conversation being on his part, your remarks 
being mostly of an exclamatory and monosyllabi ic 
order, and as soon as you can tear yourself away you 
do so. 

I devoted some three months to rafting, and, being 
then as proficient as there was any need to be at that 
branch of the art, I determined to go in for rowing 
proper, and joined one of the Lea boating clubs. 

Being out in a boat on the Kiver Lea, especially 
on Saturday afternoons, soon makes you smart at 
handling a craft, and spry at escaping being ran 
down by roughs or swamped by barges ; and it also 
affords plenty of opportunity for acquiring the most 
prompt and graceful method of lying down flat at the 

217 


Three Men in a Boat. 


bottom of the boat so as to avoid being chucked out 
into the river by passing tow-lines. 

But it does not give you style. It was not till I 
came to the Thames that I got style. My style of 
rowing is very much admired now. People say it is 
so quaint. 

George never went near the water until he was six- 
teen. Then he and eight other gentlemen of about 
the same age went down in a body to Kew one 
Saturday, with the idea of hiring a boat there, and 
pulling to Richmond and back ; one of their number, 
a shock-headed youth, named Joskins, who had once 
or twice taken out a boat on the Serpentine, told 
them it was jolly fun, boating ! 

The tide was running out pretty rapidly when they 
reached the landing-stage, and there was a stiff breeze 
blowing across the river, but this did not trouble 
them at all, and they proceeded to select their boat. 

There was an eight-oared racing outrigger drawn 
up on the stage ; that was the one that took their 
fancy. They said they’d have that one, please. 
The boatman was away, and only his boy was in 
charge. The boy tried to damp their ardor for the 
outrigger, and showed them two or three very 
comfortable-looking boats of the family party build, 
but those would not do at all ; the outrigger was the 
boat they thought they would look best in. 

So the boy launched it, and they took off* liieir 
coats and prepared to take their seats. The boy 
suggested that George, who, even in those days, was 
218 


iliree Men in a Boat. 


always the heavy man of any party, should be number 
four. George said he should be happy to be number 
four, and promptly stepped into bow’s place, and sat 
down with his back to the stern. They got him into 
his proper position at last, and then the others fol- 
lowed. 

A particularly nervous boy was appointed cox, 
and the steering principle explained to him by 
Joskins. Joskins himself took stroke. He told the 
others that it was simple enough ; all they had to do 
was to follow him. 

They said they were ready, and the boy on the 
landing-stage took a boat-hook and shoved him off. 

What then followed George is unable to describe 
in detail. He has a confused recollection of having, 
immediately on starting, received a violent blow in 
the small of the back from the butt-end of number 
five’s scull, at the same time that his own seat 
seemed to disappear from under him by magic, and 
leave him sitting on the boards. He also noticed, as 
a curious circumstance, that number two was at the 
same instant lying on his back at the bottom of the 
boat, with his legs in the air, apparently in a fit. 

They passed under Kew Bridge, broadside, at the 
rate of eight miles an hour. Joskins being the only 
one who was rowing. George, on recovering his 
seat, tried to help him, but, on dipping his oar into 
the water, it immediately, to his intense surprise, 
disappeared under the boat, and nearly took him 
with it. 


219 


l^hree Men in a 


And then threw both rudder lines over* 

board, and burst into tears. 

How they got back George never knew, but it took 
them just forty minutes. A dense crowd watched 
the entertainment from Kew Bridge with much in- 
terest, and everybody shouted out to them different 
directions. Three times they managed to get their 
boat back through the arch, and three times they 
were carried under it again, and every time ^‘cox 
looked up and saw the bridge above him he broke 
out into renewed sobs. 

George said he little thought that afternoon that 
he should ever come to really like boating. 

Harris is more accustomed to sea rowing than to 
river work, and says that, as an exercise, he prefers 
it. I donT. I remember taking a small boat out at 
Eastbourne last summer ; I used to do a good deal of 
sea rowing years ago, and I thought I should be all 
right ; but I found I had forgotten the art entirely. 
When one scull was deep down underneath the water, 
the other would be flourishing wildly about in the 
air. To get a grip of the water with both at the 
same time I had to stand up. The Parade was 
crowded with nobility and gentry, and I had to pull 
past them in this ridiculous fashion. I landed half- 
way down the beach, and secured the services of an 
old boatman to take me back. 

I like to watch an old boatman rowing, especially 
one who has been hired by the hour. There is 
something so beautifully calm and restful about his 
220 


Three Men in a Boat. 


method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that 
vehement striving, that is every day becoming more 
and more the bane of nineteenth-century life. He 
is not forever straining himself to pass all the other 
boats. If another boat overtakes him and passes 
him it does not annoy him ; as a matter of fact, they 
all do overtake him and pass him— all those that are 
going his way. This would trouble and irritate some 
people; the sublime equanimity of the hired boat- 
man under the ordeal affords us a beautiful lesson 
against ambition and uppishness. 

Plain practical rowing of the get-the-boat-along 
order is not a very difficult art to acquire, but it takes 
a good deal of practice before a man feels comfort- 
able when rowing past girls. It is the “ time ” that 
worries a youngster. It^s jolly funny,” he says, as 
for the twentieth time within five minutes he disen- 
tangles his sculls from yours : “ I can get on all right 
when I^m by myself.” 

To see two novices try to keep time with each other 
is very amusing. Bow finds it impossible to keep 
pace with stroke, because stroke rows in such an 
extraordinary fashion. Stroke is intensely indignant 
at this, and explains that what he has been endeav- 
oring to do for the last ten minutes is to adapt his 
method to bow’s limited capacity. Bow, in turn, 
then becomes insulted, and requests stroke not to 
trouble his head about him (bow), but to devote his 
ijaind to setting a sensible stroke. 

Or, shall I take strcrke?” he adde, with thfe evi- 
22X 


Three Men in a Boat. 


dent idea that that would at once put the whole 
matter right. 

They splash along for another hundred yards with 
still moderate success, and then the whole secret 
of their trouble bursts upon stroke like a flash of 
inspiration. 

“ I tell you what it is : youVe got my sculls,” he 
cries, turning to bow ; pass yours over.” 

Well, do you know. I’ve been wondering how it 
was I couldn’t get on with these,” answers bow, quite 
brightening up, and most willingly assisting in the 
exchange. “ Now we shall be all right.” 

But they are not— not even then. Stroke has to 
stretch his arms nearly out of their sockets to reach 
his sculls now; while bow’s pair, at each recovery, 
hit him a violent blow in the chest. So they change 
back again, and come to the conclusion that the man 
has given them the wrong set altogether ; and over 
their mutual abuse of this man they become quite 
friendly and sympathetic. 

George said he had often longed to take to punting 
for a change. Punting is not as easy as it looks. 
As in rowing, you soon learn how to get along and 
handle the craft, but it takes long practice before 
you can do this with dignity and without getting the 
water all up your sleeve. 

One young man I knew had a very sad accident 
happen to him the first time he went punting. He 
had been getting on so well that he had grown quite 
cheeky over the bu^ness, arid was walking up arid 
222 


Three Men in a Boat. 


down the punt, working his pole with a careless 
grace that was quite fascinating to watch. Up he 
would march to the head of the punt, plant his pole, 
and then run along right to the other end, just like 
an old punter. Oh I it was grand. 

And it would all have gone on being grand if he 
had not, unfortunately, while looking round to enjoy 
the scenery, taken just one step more than there was 
any necessity for, and walked off the punt altogether. 
The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was 
left clinging to it w^hile the punt drifted away. It 
was an undignified position for him. A rude boy on 
the bank immediately yelled out to a lagging chum 
to hurry up and see a real monkey on a stick.’^ 

I could not go to his assistance, because, as ill-luck 
would have it, we had not taken the proper precau- 
tion to bring out a spare pole with us. I could only 
sit and look at him. His expression as the pole 
slowly sunk with him I shall never forget; there 
was so much thought in it. 

I watched him gently let down into the water, and 
saw him scramble out, sad and wet. I could not 
help laughing, he looked such a ridiculous figure. I 
continued to chuckle to myself about it for some 
time, and then it was suddenly forced in upon me 
that really I had got very little to laugh at when I 
came to think of it. Here was I alone in a punt, 
without a pole, drifting helplessly down midstream — 
possibly toward a wear. 

I began to feel very indignant with my friend for 

m 


Three Men in a Boatx 


haying stepped overboard and gone off in that way. 
He might, at all events, have left me the pole. 

I drifted on for about a quarter of a mile, and then 
I came in sight of a fishing-punt moored in mid- 
stream, in which sat two old fishermen. They saw 
me bearing down upon them, and they called out to 
me to keep out of their way. 

“ I can’t,” I shouted back. 

But you don’t try,” they answered. 

I explained the matter to them when I got nearer, 
and they caught me and lent me a pole. The wear 
was just fifty yards below. I am glad they happened 
to be there. 

The first time I went punting was in company 
with three other fellows ; they were going to show 
me how to do it. We could not all start together, 
so I said I would go down first and get out the punt, 
and then I could potter about and practice a bit until 
they came. 

I could not get a punt out that afternoon, they 
were all engaged ; so I had nothing else to do but to 
sit down on the bank, watching the river, and wait- 
ing for my friends. 

I had not been sitting there long before my atten- 
tion became attracted to a man in a punt who, I 
noticed with some surprise, wore a jacket and cap 
exactly like mine. He was evidently a novice at 
punting, and his performance was most interesting. 
You never knew what was going to happen when he 
put the pole in ; he evidently did not know himself! 
224 


Three Men in-*a Boat. 


Sometimes he shot up stream, and sometimes he shot 
down stream, and at other times he simply spun 
round and came up the other side of the pole. And 
with every result he seemed equally surprised and 
annoyed. 

The people about the river began to get quite ab- 
sorbed in him after a while, and to make bets with 
one another as to what would be the outcome of his 
next push. 

In the course of time my friends arrived on the 
opposite bank, and they stopped and watched him 
. 00 . His back was toward them, and they only saw 
his jacket and cap. From this they immediately 
jumped to the conclusion that it was I, their beloved 
companion, who was making an exhibition of him- 
self, and their delight knew no bounds. They com- 
menced to chaff him unmercifully. 

I did not grasp their mistake at first, and 1 thought 
'' How rude of them to go on like that, with a perfect 
stranger, tool^^ But before 1 could call out and 
reprove them, the explanation of the matter occurred 
to me, and I withdrew behind a tree. 

Oh, how they enjoyed themselves, ridiculing that 
young man I For five good minutes they stood therei 
shouting ribaldry at him, deriding him, mocking 
him, jeering at him. They peppered him with stale 
jokes, they even made a few new ones and threw at 
him. They hurled at him all the private family jokes 
belonging to our set, and which must have been per^ 
fectly unintelligible to him. And then, unable to 
15 225 


Three Men in a Boat, 


stand their brutal jibes any longer, he turned round 
on them, and they saw his face. 

I was glad to notice that they had sufficient 
decency left in them to look very foolish. They ex- 
plained to him that they had thought he was some 
one they knew. They said they hoped he would not 
deem them capable of so insulting any one except a 
personal friend of their own. 

Of course their having mistaken him for a friend 
excused it. I remember Harris telling me once of a 
bathing experience he had at Boulogne. He was 
swimming about there near the beach, when he felt 
himself suddenly seized by the neck from behind, 
and forcibly plunged under water. He struggled 
violently, but whoever had got hold of him seemed 
to be a perfect Hercules in strength, and all his 
efforts to escape were unavailing. He had given up 
kicking, and was trying to turn his thoughts upon 
solemn things, when his captor released him. 

He regained his feet, and looked round for his 
would-be murderer. The assassin was standing close 
by him, laughing heartily; but the moment he caught 
sight of Harris^ face, as it emerged from the water, 
he started back and seemed quite concerned. 

"I really beg your pardon,'^ he stammered con- 
fusedly, but I took you for a friend of mine I '' 

Harris thought it was lucky for him the man had 
not mistaken him for a relation, or he would prob- 
ably have been drowned outright. 

Sailing is a thing that wants knowledge and 


Three Men in a Boat. 


practice too — though, as a boy, I did not think so, I 
had an idea it came natural to a body, like rounders 
and touch. I knew another boy who held this view 
likewise, and so, one windy day, we thought we would 
try the sport. We were stopping down at Yarmouth, 
and we decided we would go for a trip up the Yare. 
We hired a sailing boat at the yard by the bridge, 
and started off. 

“ It’s rather a rough day,” said the man to us, as 
we put off: “better take in a reef and luff sharp 
when you get round the bend.” 

We said we would make a point of it, and left 
him with a cheery “ Gc od-morning,” wondering to 
ourselves how you “luffed,” and where we were to 
get a “reef” from, and what we were to do with it 
when we had got it. 

We rowed until we were out of sight of the town 
and then, with a wide stretch of water in front of us, 
and the wind blowing a perfect hurricane across it, 
we felt that the time had come to commence opera- 
tions. 

Hector — I think that was his name — went on 
pulling while I unrolled the sail. It seemed a com- 
plicated job, but I accomplished it at length, and 
then came the question, which was the top end ? 

By a sort of natural instinct, we, of course, even- 
tually decided that the bottom was the top, and set 
to work to fix it upside down. But it was a long 
time before we could get it up, either that way or 
eny other way. The impression on the mind bf the 
227 


Three Men in a Boat. 


sail seemed to be that we were playing at funerala^ 
and that I was the corpse and itself was the wind- 
ing-sheet. 

When it found that this was not fhe idea, it hit 
me over the head with the boom, and refused to do 
anything. 

** Wet it,’’ said Hector ; drop it over and get it 
wet.” 

He said people in ships always wetted their sails 
before they put them up. So I wetted it ; but that 
only made matters worse than they were before. A 
dry sail clinging to your legs and wrapping itself 
round your head is not pleasant, but when the sail is 
sopping wet, it becomes quite vexing. 

We did get the thing up at last, the two of us to- 
gether. We fixed it, not exactly upside down — 
more sideways like— and we tied it up to the mast 
with the painter, which we cut off for the purpose. 

That the boat did not upset I simply state as a fact. 
Why did not upset I am unable to offer any reason. 
I have often thought about the matter since, but I 
have never succeeded in arriving at any satisfactory 
explanation of the phenomenon. 

Possibly the result may have been brought about 
by the natural obstinacy of all things in this world. 
The boat may possibly have come to the conclusion, 
judging from a cursory view of our behavior, that we 
had come out for a morning’s suicide, and had there- 
upon determined to disappoint us. That is the only 
suggestion I cm 

238 


liiree Men in a jloaii 


By clinging like grim death to the gunwale, we 
just managed to keep inside the boat, but it was ex- 
hausting work. Hector said that pirates and other 
seafaring people generally lashed the rudder to some- 
thing or other, and hauled in the main top-jib during 
severe squalls, and thought we ought to try to do 
something of the kind; but I was for letting her 
have her head to the wind. 

As my advice was by far the easiest to follow, we 
ended by adopting it, and contrived to embrace the 
gunwhale and give her her head. 

The boat traveled up stream for about a mile at 
a pace I have never sailed at since, and don^t want 
to again. Then at a bend she heeled over till half 
her sail was under water. Then she righted herself 
by a miracle and flew for a long, low bank of soft 
mud. 

That mud-bank saved us. The boat plowed its way 
into the middle of it and then stuck. Finding that 
we were once more able to move according to our 
ideas, instead of being pitched and thrown about 
like peas in a bladder, we crept forward and cut 
down the sail. 

We had enough sailing. We did not want to 
overdo the thing and get a surfeit of it. We had 
had a sail— a good, all-round, exciting, interesting 
sail — and now we thought we would have a row, just 
for a change like. 

We took the sculls and tried to push the boat off 
the mud, and, in doing so, we broke one of the sculls. 

229 


liiree Men la a fioai 


After that we proceeded with great caution, but they 
were a wretched old pair, and the second one cracked 
almost easier than the first, and left us helpless. 

The mud stretched out for about a hundred yards 
in front of us, and behind us was the water. The 
only thing to be done was to sit and wait until some 
one came by. 

It was not the sort of day to attract people out on 
the river, and it was three hours before a soul came 
in sight. It was an old fisherman who, with immense 
difficulty, at last rescued us, and we were towed back 
in an ignominious fashion to the boatyard. 

What between tipping the man who had brought 
us home, and paying for the broken sculls, and for 
having been out four hours and a half, it cost us a 
pretty considerable number of weeks^ pocket-money, 
that sail. But we learned experience, and they say 
that is always cheap at any price. 


230 


Three Men in a Boat, 


CHAPTER XVL 


Beading.— We are towed by steam launch.— Irritating behavior of 
small boats.— How they get in the way of steam launches.— 
George and Harris again shirk their work.— Rather a hack- 
neyed story.— Streatley and Goring. 


E came in sight of Eeading about eleven. The 


river is dirty and dismal here. One does not 
linger in the neighborhood of Eeading. The town 
itself is a famous old place, dating from the dim days 
of King Ethelred, when the Danes anchored their 
warships in the Kennet, and started from Eeading to 
ravage all the land of Wessex; and here Ethelred 
and his brother Alfred fought and defeated theni^ 
Ethelred doing the praying and Alfred the fighting. 

It later years, Eeading seems to have been regarded 
as a handy place to run down to, when matters were 
becoming unpleasant in London. Parliament gen- 
erally rushed off to Eeading whenever there was a 
plague on at Westminster; and in 1625 the Law fol- 
lowed suit, and all the courts were held at Eeading. 
It must have been worth while having a mere ordi- 
nary plague now and then in London to get rid of 
both the lawyers and the Parliament. 

During the Parliamentary struggle, Eeading was 
besieged by the Earl of Essex, and a quarter of a 
century later, the Prince of Orange routed King 
James^ troops there. 



28X 


iliree Men in a Boat. 


Henry I. lies buried at Reading, in the Benedictine 
abbey founded by him there, the ruins of which 
may still be seen; and, in this same abbey, great 
John of Gaunt was married to the Lady Blanche. 

At Reading Lock we came up with a steam launch, 
belonging to some friends of mine, and they towed 
^s up to within about a mile of Streatley. It is very 
delightful being towed up by a launch. I prefer it 
myself to rowing. The run would have been more 
delightful still, if it had not been for a lot of wretched 
small boats that were continually getting in the way 
of our launch, and, to avoid running down which, 
we had to be continually easing and stopping. It is 
really most annoying, the manner in which these 
rowing boats get in the way of one^s launch up the 
river ; something ought to be done to stop it. 

And they are so confoundedly impertinent, too, 
over it. You can whistle till you nearly burst your 
boiler before they will trouble themselves to hurry. 
I would have one or two of them run down now and 
then, if I had my way, just to teach them all a lesson. 

The river becomes very lovely from a little above 
Reading. The railway rather spoils it near Tile- 
hurst, but from Mapledurham up to Streatley it is 
glorious. A little above Mapledurham Lock you 
pass Hardwick House, where Charles I. played 
bowls. The neighborhood of Pangbourne, where 
the quaint little Swan Inn stands, must be as famil- 
iar to the habitues of the Art Exhibitions as it is to 
its own inhabitants. 


232 


Three Men in a Boat. 


My friend’s launcn cast us loose just helow the 
grotto, and then Harris wanted to make out that it 
was my turn to pull. This seemed to me most un- 
reasonable. It had been arranged in the morning 
that I should bring the boat up to three miles above 
Reading. Well, here we were, ten miles above 
Reading I Surely it was now their turn again. I 
could not get either George or Harris to see the 
matter in its proper light, however ; so to save argu- 
ment, I took the sculls. I had not been pulling for 
more than a minute or so, when George noticed 
something black floating on the water, and we drew 
up to it. George leaned over, as we neared it, and 
laid hold of it. And then he drew back with a cry, 
and blanched face. 

It was the dead body of a woman. It lay very 
lightly on the water, and the face was sweet and 
calm. It was not a beautiful face ; it was too pre- 
maturely aged-looking, too thin and drawn, to be 
that ; but it was a gentle, lovable face, in spite of its 
stamp of pinch and poverty, and upon it was that 
look of restful peace that comes to the faces of 
the sick sometimes when at last the pain has left 
them. 

Fortunately for us — we having no desire to be 
kept hanging about coroner’s courts — some men on 
the bank had seen the body, too, and now took charge 
of it from us. 

We found out the woman’s story afterward. Of 
course it was the old, old vulgar tragedy. She had 
233 


Three Men in a Boat. 


loved and been deceived — or had deceived herselt 
Anyhow, she had sinned — some of us do now and 
then — and her family and friends, naturally shocked 
and indignant, had closed their doors against her. 
Left to fight the world alone, with the mill-stone of 
her shame around her neck, she had sunk ever lower 
and lower. For awhile she had kept both herself 
and the child on the twelve shillings a week that 
twelve hours’ drudgery a day procured her, paying 
six shillings out of it for the child, and keeping her 
own body and soul together on the remainder. 

Six shillings a week does not keep body and soul 
together very unitedly. They want to get away from 
each other when there is only such a very slight 
bond as that between them ; and one day, I suppose, 
the pain and the dull monotony of it all had stood 
before her eyes plainer than usual, and the mocking 
specter had frightened her. She had made one last 
appeal to friends, but, against the chill wall of their 
respectability, the voice of the erring outcast fell un- 
heeded ; and then she had gone to see her child — 
had held it in her arms and kissed it, in a weary, dull 
sort of way, and without betraying any particular 
emotion of any kind, and had left it, after putting 
into its hand a penny box of chocolate she had 
bought it, and afterward, with her last few shillings, 
had taken a ticket and come down to Goring. 

It seemed that the bitterest thoughts of her life 
must have centered about the wooded reaches and 
the bright green meadows around Goring; but women 
234 


Three Men in a Boat. 


strangely hug the knife that stabs them, and per- 
haps, amid the gall, there may have mingled also 
sunny memories of sweetest hours, spent upon those 
shadowed deeps over which the great trees bend their 
branches down so low. 

She had wandered about the woods by the river^s 
brink all day, and then, when evening fell and the 
gray twilight spread its dusky robe upon the waters, 
she stretched her arms out to the silent river that 
had known her sorrow and her joy. And the old 
river had taken her into its gentle arms, and had laid 
her weary head upon its bosom, and had hushed 
away the pain. 

Thus had she sinned in all things — sinned in 
living and in dying. God help her I and all other 
sinners, if any more there be. 

Goring on the left bank and Streatley on the right 
are both or either charming places to stay at for a 
few days. The reaches down to Pangbourne woo 
one for a sunny sail or for a moonlight row, and the 
country round about is fiill of beauty. We had in- 
tended to push on to Wallingford that day, but the 
sweet smiling face of the river here lured us to linger 
for awhile ; and so we left our boat at the bridge, and 
went up into Streatley, and lunched at the Bull, 
much to Montmorency’s satisfaction. 

They say that the hills on each side of the stream 
here once joined and formed a barrier across what 
is now the Thames, and that then the river ended 
there g-bove Goring in one vast lake. I am not ir, ^ 
^35 


Three Men in a Boat. 


position either to contradict or affirm this statement, 
I simply offer it. 

It is an ancient place, Streatley, dating back, like 
most riverside town and villages to British and Saxon 
times. Goring is not nearly so pretty a little spot to 
stop at as Streatley, if you have your choice ; but it 
is passing fair enough in its way, and is nearer the 
railway in case you want to slip off without paying 
your hotel bill. 


m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER XVIL 

Wasbing-day. — Fish and fishers.— On the art of angling.— >A 
conscientious fly-fisher.— A fishy story. 

W E stayed two days at Streatley, and got our 
clothes washed. We had tried washing them 
ourselves in the river, under George’s superintend- 
ence, and it had been a failure. Indeed, it had been 
more than a failure, because we were worse off after 
we had washed our clothes than we were before. 
Before we had washed them, they had been very, 
very dirty, it is true ; but they were just wearable. 
After we had washed them — well, the river between 
Beading and Henley was much cleaner, after we had 
washed our clothes in it than it was before. All the 
dirt contained in the river between Beading and 
Henley we collected during that wash, and worked 
it into our clothes. 

The washerwoman at Streatley said she felt she 
owed it to herself to charge us just three times the 
usual prices for that wash. She said it had not 
been like washing, it had been more in the nature of 
excavating. 

We paid the bill without a murmur. 

The neighborhood of Streatley and Goring is a 
great fishing center. There is some excellent fish- 
ing to be had there. The river abounds in pik^ 
237 


Three Men in a Boat, 


roach^ dace, gudgeon, and eels, just here; and 70U 
can sit and fish for them all day. 

Some people do. They never catch them, I never 
knew anybody catch anything up the Thames, except 
minnows and dead cats, but that has nothing to do, 
of course, with fishing I The local fisherman’s guide 
doesn’t say a word about catching anything. All it 
says is the place is “a good station for fishing;” and 
from what I have seen of the district, I am quite pre- 
pared to bear out this statement. 

There is no spot in the world where you can get 
more fishing, or where you can fish for a longer 
period. Some fishermen come here and fish for a 
day, and others stop and fish for a month. You can 
hang on and fish for a year, if you want to ; it will 
be all the same. 

The “ Angler’s Guide to the Thames ” says that 
^^jack and perch are also to he had about here,” but 
there the “Angler’s Guide” is wrong. Jack and 
perch may he about there. Indeed, I know for a fact 
that they are. You can ue them there in shoals, 
when you are out for a walk along the banks ; they 
come and stand half out of the water with their 
mouths open for biscuits. And if you go for a bathe, 
they crowd round, and get in your way, and irritate 
you. But they are not to be “had” by a bit of worm 
on the end of a hook, nor anything like it— not they I 

I am not a good fisherman myself. I devoted a 
considerable amount of attention to the subject at 
one time, and was getting on, as I thought, fairly 
238 


Three Men in a Boat. 


well ; but the old hands told me that I should never 
be any real good at it, and advised me to give it up. 
They said that I was an extremely neat thrower, and 
that I seemed to have plenty of gumption for the 
thing, and quite enough constitutional laziness. But 
they were sure I should never make anything of a 
fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination. 

They said that as a poet, or a shilling shocker, or a 
reporter, or anything of that kind, I might be satis- 
factory, but that, to gain any position as a Thames 
angler, would require more play of fancy, more power 
of invention than I appeared to possess. 

Some people are under the impression that all 
that is required to make a good fisherman is the 
ability to tell lies easily and without blushing ; but 
this is a mistake. Here bald fabrication is useless ; 
the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the 
circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of 
probability, the general air of scrupulous — almost of 
pedantic — veracity, that the experienced angler is 
seen. 

Anybody can coijae in and say, ‘‘Oh, I caught 
fifteen dozen perch yesterday evening;’^ or “Last 
Monday I landed a gudgeon, weighing eighteen 
pounds, and measuring three feet from the tip to 
the tail.^^ 

There is no art, no skill, required for that sort of 
thing. It shows pluck, but that is all. 

No ; your accomplished angler would scorn to tell 
a that way. His method is a study in itself. 

239 


Three Men in a Boat. 


He comes in quietly with his hat on, appropriates 
the most comfortable chair, lights his pipe, and com- 
mences to puff in silence. He lets the youngsters 
brag away for awhile, and then, during a momentary 
lull, he removes the pipe from his mouth, and re- 
marks, as he knocks the ashes out against the bars : 

“Well, I had a haul on Tuesday evening that it’s 
not much good my telling anybody about.” 

“ Oh I why’s that ? ” they ask. 

“Because I don’t expect anybody would believe 
me if I did,” replies the old fellow calmly, and with- 
out even a tinge of bitterness in his tone, as he refills 
his pipe, and requests the landlord to bring him 
three of Scotch, cold. 

There is a pause after this, nobody feeling suffi- 
ciently sure of himself to contradict the old gentle- 
man, So he has to go on by himself without any 
encouragement. 

“No,” he continues thoughtfully; “I shouldn’t 
believe it myself if anybody told it to me, but it’s a 
fact, for all that. I had been sitting there all the 
afternoon and had caught literally nothing— except 
a few dozen dace and a score of jack ; and I was just 
about giving it up as a bad job when I suddenly felt 
a rather smart pull at the line. I thought it was 
another little one, and I went to jerk it up. Hang 
me, if I could move the rod I It took me half an 
hour — half an hour sir I— to land that fish; and 
every moment I thought the line was going to snap I 
I reached him at last, and what do you think it was? 
240 


Three Men in a Boat, 


\ 


A sturgeon I a forty-pound sturgeon I taken on a 
line, sir I Yes, you may well look surprised — 1^11 
have another three of Scotch, landlord, please.” 

And then he goes on to tell of the astonishment of 
everybody who saw it ; and what his wife said, when 
he got home, and of what Joe Buggies thought 
about it. 

I asked the landlord of an inn up the river once, 
if it did not injure him, sometimes, listening to the 
tales that the fishermen about there told him ; and 
he said : 

‘‘ Oh, no ; not now, sir. It did used to knock me 
over a bit at first, but. Lor’ love you I me and the 
missus we listens to ’em all day now. It’s what you’re 
used to, you know. It’s what you’re used to.” 

I knew a young man once, he was a most con- 
scientious fellow, and when he took to fly-fishing, he 
determined never to exaggerate his hauls by more 
than twenty-five per cent. 

When I have caught forty fish,” said he, then 
I will tell people that I have caught fifty, and so on. 
But I will not lie any more than that, because it is 
sinful to lie.” 

But the twenty-five per cent, plan did not work 
well at all. He never was able to use it. The 
greatest number of fish he ever caught in one day 
was three, and you can’t add twenty-five per cent, 
to three — at least, not in fish. 

So he increased his percentage to thirty-three-and- 
a-third ; but that, again, was awkward, when he ^ad 
16 241 


Three Men in a Boato 


only caught one or two ; so, to simplify matters, he 
made up his mind to just double the quantity. 

He stuck to this arrangement for a conple of 
months, and then he grew dissatisfied with it. No- 
body believed him when he told them that he only 
doubled, and he, therefore, gained no credit that way 
whatever, while his moderation put him at a disad- 
vantage among the other anglers. When he had 
really caught three small fish, and said he had caught 
six, it used to make him quite jealous to hear a man, 
who he knew for a fact had only caught one, going 
about telling people he had landed two dozen. 

So, eventually, he made one final arrangement 
with himself, which he has religiously held to ever 
since, and that was to count each fish that he caught 
as ten, and to assume ten to begin with. For ex- 
ample, if he did not catch any fish at all, then he 
said he had caught ten fish — you could never catch 
less than ten fish by his system ; that was the founda- 
tion of it. Then, if by any chance he really did 
catch one fish, he called it twenty, while two fish 
would count thirty, three forty, and so on. 

It is a simple and easily worked plan, and there 
has been some talk lately of its being made use of 
by the angling fraternity in general. Indeed, the 
committee of the Thames Anglers’ Association did 
recommend its adoption about two years ago, but 
some of the older members opposed it. They said 
they would consider the idea if the number were 
doubled, and each fish counted as twenty, 

2a 


Three Men in a Boat, 


If ever you have an evening to spare, up the 
river, I should advise you to drop into one of the 
little village inns, and take a seat in the taproom. 
You will be nearly sure to meet one or two old 
rodmen, sipping their toddy there, and they will tell 
you enough fishy stories in half an hour to give you 
indigestion for a month. 

George and I — I don’t know what had become of 
Harris ; he had gone out and had a shave, early in 
the afternoon, and had then come back and spent 
full forty minutes in pipe-claying his shoes, we had 
not seen him since — George and I, therefore, and 
the dog, left to ourselves, went for a walk to Wal- 
lingford on the second evening, and, coming home, 
we called in at a little river-side inn, for a rest, and 
other things. 

We went into the parlor and sat down. There 
was an old fellow there, smoking a long clay pipe, 
and we naturally began chatting. 

He told us that it had been a fine day to-day, and 
we told him that it had been a fine day yesterday, 
and then we all told each other that we thought it 
would be a fine day to-morrow ; and George said the 
crops seemed to be coming up nicely. 

After that it came out, somehow or other, that we 
were strangers in the neighborhood, and that we 
were going away the next morning. 

Then a pause ensued in the conversation, during 
which our eyes wandered round the room. They 
finally rested upon a dusty old glass case, fixed very 
243 


Three Men in a Boat. 


high up above the chimney-piece, and containing a 
trout. It rather fascinated me, that trout; it was 
such a monstrous fish. In fact, at first glance I 
thought it was a cod. 

said the old gentleman, following the direc- 
tion of my gaze, “ fine fellow that, ain’t he ? ” 

Quite uncommon,” I murmured; and George 
asked the old man how much he thought it weighed. 

Eighteen pounds six ounces,” said our friend, 
rising and taking down his coat. ‘‘Yes,” he con- 
tinued, “ it wur sixteen year ago, come the third o’ 
next month, that I landed him. I caught him just 
below the bridge with a minnow. They told me he 
wur in the river, and I said I’d have him, and so I did. 
You don’t see many fish that size about here now, I’m 
thinking. Good-night, gentlemen, good-night.” 

And out he went, and left us alone. 

We could not take our eyes off the fish after that 
It really was a remarkably fine fish. We were still 
looking at it when the local carrier, who had just 
stopped at the inn, came to the door of the room 
with a pot of beer in his hand, and he also looked at 
the fish. 

“Good-sized trout that,” said George, turning 
round to him. 

“ Ah I you may well say that, sir,” replied the man; 
and then, after a pull at his beer, he added : “ Maybe 
you wasn’t here, sir, when that fish was caught ? ” 

“No,” we told him. We were strangers in the 
neighborhood. 


244 


Three Men in a Boat 


said the carrier, ^Hhen, of course, how 
should you? It was nearly five years ago that I 
caught that trout/ ^ 

Oh ! was it you who caught it, then? said I. 
*'Yes, sir,” replied the genial old fellow. “I 
caught him just below the lock — leastways, what 
was the lock then — one Friday afternoon ; and the 
remarkable thing about it is that I caught him with 
a fly. I’d gone out pike-fishing, bless you, never 
thinking of a trout, and when I saw that whopper 
at the end of my line, blest if it didn’t quite take me 
aback. Well, you see, he weighed twenty-six pound. 
Good-night, gentlemen, good-night.” 

Five minutes afterward a third man came in, and 
described how he had caught it early one morning, 
with bleak ; and then he left, and a stolid, solemn- 
looking, middle-aged individual came in, and sat 
down over by the window. 

None of us spoke for awhile ; but at length George 
turned to the newcomer and said : 

I beg your pardon, I hope you will forgive the 
liberty that we — perfect strangers in the neighbor- 
hood— are taking, but my friend and myself would 
be so much obliged if you would tell us how you 
caught that trout up there.” 

^‘Why, who told you I caught that trout?” was 
the surprised query. 

We said that nobody had told us so, but somehow 
or other we felt instinctively that it was he who had 
done it. 


245 


Three Men in a Boat. 


‘‘Well, it's a most remarkable thing — most re^ 
markable,’’ answered the stolid stranger, laughing; 

because, as a matter of fact, you are quite right. I 
did catch it. But fancy your guessing it like that. 
Dear me, it’s really a most remarkable thing.” 

And then he went on and told us, how it had taken 
him half an hour to land it, and how it had broken 
his rod. He said te had weighed it carefully when 
he reached home, and it had turned the scale at 
thirty-four pounds. 

He went in his turn, and when he was gone, the 
landlord came in to us. We told him the various 
histories we had heard about his trout, and he was 
immensely amused, and we all laughed very heartily. 

“Fancy Jim Bates and Joe Muggles and Mr. 
Jones and old Billy Maunders all telling you that 
they had caught it. Hal ha I ha I Well, that is 
good,” said the honest old fellow, laughing heartily. 
“ Yes, they are the sort to give it to to put up in 
my parlor, if they had caught it, they are I Hal 
ha! ha!” 

And then he told us the real history of the fish 
It seemed that he had caught it himself, years ago,, 
when he was quite a lad ; not by any art or skill, 
but by that unaccountable luck that appears to 
always wait upon a boy when he plays the wag from 
school, and goes out fishing on a sunny afternoon, 
with a bit of string tied on to the end of a tree. 

He said that bringing home that trout had saved 
him from a whacking, and that even bis school* 


Three Men in a Boat. 


master had said it was worth the rule of three and 
practice put together. 

He was called out of the room at this point, and 
George and I again turned our gaze upon the fish. 

It really was a most astonishing trout. The more 
we looked at it, the more we marvelled at it. It 
excited George so much that he climbed up on the 
back of a chair to get a better view of it. 

And then the chair slipped, and George clutched 
wildly at the trout case to save himself, and down 
it came with a crash, George and the chair on top 
of it. 

^‘You havenT injured the fish, have you?^^ I cried 
in alarm, rushing up. 

** I hope not,’^ said George, rising cautiously and 
looking about. 

But he had. That trout lay shattered into a thou- 
sand fragments — I say a thousand, but they may have 
only been nine hundred. I did not count them. 

We thought it strange 'and unaccountable that a 
stuffed trout should break up into little pieces like 
that. 

And so it would have been strange and unaccount- 
able, if it had been a stuffed trout, but it was net. 

That trout was plaster of Paris. 


247 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTEB XVIIL 


Locks.— George and I are photographed.— Wallingford.— Dor- 
Chester.— Abingdon.— A family man.— A good spot for drown- 
ing. — A difficult bit of water. — Demoralizing effect of river air. 


E left Streatley early tlie next morning, and 


pulled up to Culham, and slept under the can- 
vas, in the backwater there. 

The river is not extraordinarily interesting between 
Streatley and Wallingford, From Cleve you get a 
stretch of six and a half miles without a lock. I 
believe this is the longest uninterrupted stretch any- 
where above Teddington, and the Oxford Club make 
use of it for their trial eights. 

But however satisfactory this absence of locks may 
be to rowing-men, it is to be regretted by the mere 
pleasure-seeker. 

For myself, I am fond of locks. They pleasantly 
break the monotony of the pull. I like sitting in 
the boat and slowly rising out of the cool depths up 
into new reaches and fresh views ; or sinking down, 
as it were, out of the world, and then waiting, while 
the gloomy gates creak, and the narrow strip of 
daylight between them widens till the fair smiling 
river lies full before you, and you push your little 
boat out from its brief prison on to the welcoming 
waters once again. 

They are picturesque little spots, these locks. The 



248 


Three Men in a Boat, 


stout old lock-keeper, or his cheerful-looking wife, or 
bright-eyed daughter, are pleasant folk to have a 
passing chat mth.* You meet other boats there, 
and river gossip is exchanged. The Thames would 
not be the fairy-land it is without its flower-decked 
locks. 

Talking of locks reminds me of an accident George 
and I very nearly had one summer’s morning at 
Hampton Court. 

It was a glorious day, and the lock was crowded ; 
and, as is a common practice up the river, a specu- 
lative photographer was taking a picture of us all as 
we lay upon the rising waters. 

I did not catch what was going on at flrst, and was, 
therefore, extremely surprised at noticing George 
hurriedly smooth out his trousers, ruffle up his hair, 
and stick his cap on in a rakish manner at the back 
of his head, and then, assuming an expression of 
mingled afiability and sadness, sit down in a graceful 
attitude, and try to hide his feet. 

My flrst idea was that he had suddenly caught 
sight of some girl he knew, and I looked about to see 
who it was. Everybody in the lock seemed to have 
been suddenly struck wooden. They were all stand- 
ing or sitting about in the most quaint and curious 


* Or rather were. The Conservancy of late seems to have con- 
stituted itself into a society for the employment of idiots. A good 
many of the new lock-keepers, especially in the more crowded 
portions of the river, are excitable, nervous old men, quite unfitted 
for their post. 


249 


Three Men in a Boat. 


attitudes I have ever seen off a Japanese fan. All 
the girls were smiling. Oh, they did look so sweet! 
And all the fellows were frowning, and looking stem 
and noble. 

And then, at last, the tmth flashed across me, and 
I wondered if I should be in time. Ours was the 
first boat, and it would be unkind of me to spoil the 
man’s picture, I thought. 

So I faced round quickly, and took up a position 
in the prow, where I leaned with careless grace upon 
the hitcher, in an attitude suggestive of agility and 
strength. I arranged my hair with a curl over the 
forehead, and threw an air of tender wistfulness into 
my expression, mingled with a touch of cynicism, 
which I am told suits me. 

As we stood, waiting for the eventful moment, I 
heard some one behind call out : 

Hi I look at your nose.’’ 

I could not turn round to see what was the matter, 
and whose nose it was that was to be looked at. I 
stole a side glance at George’s nose I It was aU 
right — at all events, there was nothing wrong with 
it that could be altered. I squinted down at my own, 
and that seemed all that could be expected also, 

‘^Look at your nose, you stupid ass I” came the 
same voice again, louder. 

And then another voice cried : 

‘‘Push your nose out, can’t you, you — ^you two 
with the dog I ” 

Neither George nor I dared to turn round. The 

250 


'three Men in a ]^at. 


man's hand was on the cap, and the picture might 
be taken any moment. Was it us they were calling 
to? What was the matter with our noses? Why 
were they to be pushed out? 

But now the whole lock started yelling, and a 
stentorian voice shouted : 

“ Look at your boat, sir : you in the red and black 
caps. It's your two corpses that will get taken in 
that photo if you ain't quick." 

We looked then, and saw that the nose of our boat 
had got fixed under the woodwork of the lock, while 
the incoming water was rising all round it and tilting 
it up. In another moment we should be over. Quick 
as thought we each seized an oar, and a vigorous 
blow against the side of the lock with the butt- 
ends released the boat and sent us sprawling on 
our backs. 

We did not come out well in that photograph, 
George and I. Of course, as was to be expected, our 
luck ordained it that the man should set his wretched 
machine in motion at the precise moment that we 
were both lying on our backs with a wild expression 
of ‘‘Where am I? and what is it?" on our faces and 
our four feet waving madly in the air. 

Our feet were undoubtedly the leading article in 
that photograph. Indeed, very little else was to be 
seen. They filled up the foreground entirely. Behind 
them you caught glimpses of the other boats and 
bits of the surrounding scenery, but everything and 
everybody else in the lock looked so utterly insignifi- 
261 


lliree Men in a Boat. 


cant and paltry compared with our feet that all the 
other people felt quite ashamed of themselves and 
refused to subscribe to the picture. 

The owner of one steam launch, who had bespoke 
six copies, rescinded the order on seeing the nega- 
tive. He said he would take them if anybody could 
show him his launch, but nobody could. It was 
somewhere behind George’s right foot. 

There was a good deal of unpleasantness over the 
business. The photographer thought we ought to 
take a dozen copies each, seeing that the photo was 
about nine-tenths us, but we declined. We said we 
had no objection to being photo’d full length, but we 
preferred being taken the right way up. 

Wallingford, six miles above Streatley, is a very 
ancient town, and has been an active center for the 
making of English history. It was a rude, mud- 
built town in the time of the Britons, who squatted 
there until the Eoman legions evicted them and 
replaced their clay-baked walls by mighty fortifica- 
tions, the trace of which Time has not yet succeeded 
in sweeping away, so well those old-world masons 
knew how to build. 

But Time, though he halted at Eoman walls, soon 
rumbled Eomans to dust, and on the ground in 
•ater years fought savage Saxons and huge Danes 
until the Normans came. 

It was a walled and fortified town up to the time 
of the Parliamentary War, when it suffered a long 
252 


Three Men in a Boat. 


and bitter siege from Fairfax. It fell at last, and 
then the walls were razed. 

From Wallingford up to Dorchester the neighbor- 
hood of the river grows more hilly, varied, and 
picturesque. Dorchester stands half a mile from 
the river. It can be reached by paddling up the 
Thames, if you have a small boat ; but the best way 
is to leave the river at Day^s Lock, and take a walk 
across the field. Dorchester is a delightfully peace- 
ful old place, nestling in stillness, and silence and 
drowsiness. 

Dorchester, like Wallingford, was a city in ancient 
British times ; it was then called Caer Doren, the 
city on the water. In more recent times the 
Komans formed a great camp here, the fortifications 
surrounding which now seem like low even hills. In 
Saxon days it was the capital of Wessex. It is very 
old, and it was very strong and great once. Now it sits 
aside from the stirring world, and nods and dreams. 

Bound Clifton Hampden, itself a wonderfully 
pretty village, old-fashioned, peaceful, and dainty 
with flowers, the river scenery is rich and beautiful. 
If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you can- 
not do better than put up at the Barley Mow. It 
is, without exception, I should say, the quaintest, 
most old-world inn up the river. It stands on the 
right of the bridge, quite away from the village. 
Its low pitched gables and thatched roof and latticed 
windows give it quite a story-book appearance, while 
inside it is even still more once-upon-£t-timeyfied, 

m 


Three Men in a Boat. 


would not be a good place for a heroine of a 
modern novel to stay at. The heroine of a modem 
novel is always ^‘divinely tall,” and she is ever 
“drawing herself up to her full height.” At the 
Barley Mow she would bump her head against the 
ceiling each time she did this. 

It would also be a bad house for a drunken man 
to put up at. There are too many surprises in the 
way of unexpected steps down into this room and 
up into that; and as for getting upstairs to his bed- 
room, or ever finding his bed when he got up, either 
operation would be an utter impossibility to him. 

We were up early the next morning, as we wanted 
to be in Oxford by the afternoon. It is surprising 
how early one can get up, when camping out. One 
does not yearn for “just another five minutes” nearly 
so much, lying wrapped up in a rug on the boards of 
a boat, with a Gladstone bag for a pillow, as one 
does in a featherbed. We had finished breakfast 
and were through Clifton Lock by half-past eight. 

From Clifton to Culham the river banks are flat, 
monotonous, and uninteresting, but, after you get 
through Culham lock — the coldest and deepest lock 
on the river — ^the landscape improves. 

At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. 
Abingdon is a typical country town of the smaller 
order— quiet, eminently respectable, clean, and des- 
perately dull. It prides itself on being old, but 
whether it can compare in this respect with Walling- 
ford and Dorchester seems doubtful, A faihdiu^ 
254 


Three Men in a Boat. 


abbey stood here once, and within what is left of its 
sanctified walls they brew bitter ale nowadays. 

In St. Nicholas’ Church, at Abingdon, there is a 
monument to John Black wall and his wife Jane, 
who both, after leading a happy married life, died on 
the very same day, August 21, 1625; and in St. 
Helen’s Church, it is recorded that W. Lee, who died 
in 1637, had in his lifetime issue from his loins two 
hundred lacking but three.” If you work this out 
you will find that Mr. W. Lee’s family numbered one 
hundred and ninety-seven. Mr. W. Lee — five times 
mayor of Abingdon — was, no doubt, a benefactor to 
his generation, but I hope there are not many of his 
kind about in this overcrowded nineteenth century. 

From Abingdon to Nuneham Courteney is a lovely 
stretch. Nuneham Park is well worth a visit. It 
can be viewed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The 
house contains a fine collection of pictures and curi- 
osities, and the grounds are very beautiful. 

The pool under Sandford lasher, just behind the 
lock, is a very good place to drown yourself in. The 
undercurrent is terribly strong, and if you once get 
down into it you are all right. An obelisk marks the 
spot where two men have already been drowned, 
while bathing there ; and the steps of the obelisk are 
generally used as a diving-board by young men now 
who wish to see if the place really is dangerous. 

Iffley Lock and Mill, a mile before you reach 
Oxford, is a favorite subject with the river-loving 
brethren of the brush. The real article, however, 
255 


I 


Three Men in a Boat. 


is rather disappointing, after the pictures. Few 
things, I have noticed, come quite up to the pictures 
of them, in this world. 

We passed through Iffley Lock at about half-past 
twelve, and then, having tidied up the boat and made 
all ready for landing, we set to work on our last mile. 

Between Iffley and Oxford is the most difficult bit 
of the river I know. You want to be born on that 
bit of water to understand it. I have been over it a 
fairish number of times, but I have never been able 
to get the hang of it. The man who could row a 
straight course from Oxford to Iffley ought to be able 
to live comfortably under one roof with his wife, his 
mother-in-law, his elder sister, and the old servant 
who was in the family when he was a baby. 

First the current drives you on to the right bank, 
and then on the left, then it takes you out into the 
middle, turns round three times, and carries you up 
stream again, and always ends by trying to smash 
you up against a college barge. 

Of course, as a consequence of this, we got in the 
way of a good many other boats, during the mile^ 
and they in ours, and, of course, as a consequence of 
that, a good deal of bad language occurred. 

I don’t know why it should be, but everybody is 
always so exceptionally irritable on the river. Little 
mishaps, that you would hardly notice on dry land, 
drive you nearly frantic with rage when they occur 
on the water. When Harris or George makes an ass 
of himself on dry land, I smile indulgently ; when 
256 


Three Men in a Boat. 


they behave in a chuckle-head way on the river, 
I use the most blood-curdling language to them. 
When another boat gets in my way, I feel I want to 
take an oar and kill all the people in it. 

The mildest-tempered people, when on land, be- 
come violent and bloodthirsty when in a boat. I did 
a little boating once with a sweet young lady. She 
Was naturally of the sweetest and gentlest disposition 
imaginable, but on the river it was quite awful to 
hear her. 

^^Oh, drat the manl^^ she would exclaim when 
some unfortunate sculler would get in her way; 'Vhy 
don^t he look where he’s going ? ” 

And, Oh, bother the silly old thing I ” she would 
say indignantly, when tho sail would not go up 
properly. And she would catch hold of it and 
shake it quite brutally. 

Yet, as I have said, when on shore she was kind- 
hearted and amiable enough. 

The air of the river has a demoralizing effect 
upon one’s temper, and this it is, I suppose, which 
causes even bargemen to be sometimes rude to one 
another, and to use language which, no doubt, in 
their calmer moments they r^et. 


17 


357 


Three Men in a Boat. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


Oxford.— Montmorency’s idea of heaven.— The hired up-rivef 
boat, its beauties and advantages.— The “Pride of the 
Thames.”— The weather changes. — The river under different 
aspects.— Not a cheerful evening. — Yearnings for the unattain- 
able. — The cheery chat goes round.— George performs upon 
the banjo.— A mournful melody.— Another wet day.— Flight. — 
A little supper and a toast. 


E spent two very pleasant days at Oxford, 


There are plenty of dogs in the town of 
Oxford. Montmorency had eleven fights on the 
first day, and fourteen on the second, and evidently 
thought he had got to heaven. 

Among folk too constitutionally weak, or too con- 
stitutionally lazy, whichever it may be, to relish 
up-stream work, it is a common practice to get a 
boat at Oxford and row down. For the energetic, 
however, the up-stream journey is certainly to be 
preferred. It does not seem good to be always 
going with the current. There is more satisfaction 
in squaring one’s back, and fighting against it, and 
winning one’s way forward in spite of it — at least, so 
I feel, when Harris and George are sculling and I 
am steering. 

To those who do contemplate making Oxford their 
starting-place, I would say, take your own boat — 
unless, of course, you can take some one else’s with- 
out any possible danger of being ibandi The 



m 


Three Men in a Boat 


boats that, as a rule, are let for hire on the Thames 
above Marlow are very good boats. They are fairly 
water-tight; and so long as they are handled with 
care, they rarely come to pieces or sink. There are 
places in them to sit down on, and they are complete 
with all the necessary arrangements — or nearly all — 
to enable you to row them and steer them. 

But they are not ornamental. The boat you hire 
up the river above Marlow is not the sort of boat in 
which you can flasl.i about and give yourself airs. 
The hired up-river boat very soon puts a stop to any 
nonsense of that sort on the part of its occupants. 
That is its chief — one may say, its only recommenda- 
tion. 

The man in the hired up-river boat is modest and 
retiring. He likes to ^:*.eep on the shady side under- 
neath the trees, and to do most of his traveling early 
in the morning or late at night, when there are not 
many people about on the river to look at him. 

When the man in the hired up-river boat sees any 
one he knows, he gets out on the bank, and hides 
behind a tree. 

I was one of a party who hired an up-river boat 
one summer for a few days^ trip. We had none of 
us ever seen the hired up-river boat before ; and we 
did not know what it was when we did see it. 

We had written for a boat — a double-sculling skiff; 
and when we went down with our bags to the yard, 
find ga\’o our names, the man said : 

" Oh, yds ; 3Tchi Ve the party ttiat wfote for a <|dq[bl^ 


Three Men in a Boat. 


sculling skiff. Ifs all right. Jim, fetch round ‘The 
Pride of the Thames.' ” 

The boy went, and reappeared five minutes after- 
ward, struggling with an antediluvian chunk of wood, 
that looked as though it had been recently dug out 
of somewhere, and dug out carelessly, so as to have 
been unnecessarily damaged in the process. 

My own idea on first catching sight of the object, 
was that it was a Eoman relic of some sort — relic of 
what I do not know, possibly of a coffin. 

The neighborhood of the upper Thames is rich in 
Roman relics, and my surmise seemed to me a very 
probable one ; but our serious young man, who is a 
bit of a geologist, pooh-poohed my Eoman relic 
theory, and said it was clear to the meanest intellect 
(in which category he seemed to be grieved that he 
could not conscientiously include mine) that the 
thing the boy had found was the fossil of a whale ; 
and he pointed out to us various evidences proving 
that it must have belonged to the pre-glacial period. 

To settle the dispute, we appealed to the boy. We 
told him not to be afraid, but to speak the plain 
truth : Was it the fossil of a pre- Adamite whale, oi* 
was it an early Eoman coffin ? 

The boy said it was ‘‘ The Pride of the Thames.” 

We thought this a very humorous answer on the 
part of the boy at first, and somebody gave him two- 
pence as a reward for his ready wit ; but when he 
pwsisted in keeping up the joke, as we thought, tpo 
long, we T€^ed with him. 

369 


Three Men in a Boat. 


^ Come, come, my lad I ’’ said our captain sharply; 
"don’t let us have any nonsense. You take your 
mother's washing-tub home again, and bring ua a 
boat.” 

The boat-builder himself came up then, and ae- 
sured us, on his word, as a practical man, that the 
thing really was a boat — was, in fact, boat, the 
* double-sculling skiff” selected to take us on our 
trip down the river. 

We grumbled a good deal. We thought he might 
at least have had it whitewashed or tarred — had 
iomething done to it to distinguish it from a bit of a 
vn-eck ; but he could not see any fault in it. 

He even seemed offended at our remarks. He said 
he had picked us out the best boat in all his stock, 
and he thought we might have been more grateful. 

He said it, " The Pride of the Thames,” had been 
in use, just as it now stood (or rather as it now hung 
together) for the last forty years, to his knowledge, 
and nobody had complained of it before, and he did 
not see why we should be the first to begin. 

We argued no more. 

We fastened the so-called boat together with some 
pieces of string, got a bit of wall-paper and pasted 
over the shabbier places, said our prayers, and stepped 
on board. 

They charged us thirty-five shillings fo^' vhe loan 
of the remnant for six days; and we couid have 
bought the thing out and out for four-and-sixpenca 
at any sale of driftwood round the coaat. 

261 


lluree Men in a Boat 


The weather changed on the third day — oh! I am 
talking about our present trip now — and we started 
fix)m Oxford upon our homeward journey in the 
midst of a steady drizzle. 

The river — with the sunlight flashing from ita 
dancing rivulets, gilding gold the gray-green beech 
trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, 
chasing shadows o’er the shallows, flinging diamonds 
from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, 
wantoning with the wear’s white waters, silvering 
moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every tiny 
townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying 
tangled in the rushes, peeping, laughing from each 
inlet, gleaming gay on many a far sail, making soft 
the air with glory — is a golden fairy stream. 

But the river — chill and weary, with the ceaseless 
rain-drops falling on its brown and sluggish waters, 
with a sound as of a woman weeping low in some 
dark chamber ; while the woods, all dark and silent, 
shrouded in their mists of vapor, stand like ghosts 
upon the margin ; silent ghosts with eyes reproach- 
ful, like the ghosts of evil actions, like the ghosts of 
friends neglected — is a spirit-haunted water through 
the land of vain regrets. 

Sunlight is the life-blood of Nature. Mother 
Earth looks at us with such dull, soulless eyes when 
the sunli'^ht has died away from out of her.- It 
makes us sad to be with her then ; she does not .seem 
to know us or to care for us. She is as a widow 
who has lost the husband she loved, and her children 
2G2 


Three Men in a Boat. 


touch her hand, and look up into her eyes, but gain 
no smile from her. 

We rowed on all that day through the rain, and 
very melancholy work it was. We pretended, at 
first, that we enjoyed it. We said it was a change, 
that we liked to see the river under all its different 
aspects. We said we could not expect to have it 
all sunshine, nor should we wish it. We told each 
other that Nature was beautiful, even in her tears. 

Indeed, Harris and I were quite enthusiastic about 
the business, for the first few hours. And we sung 
a song about a gypsy’s life^ and how delightfiil a 
gypsy^s existence was I free to storm and sunshine, 
and to every wind that blew I — and how he enjoyed 
the rain, and what a lot of good it did him; anrf 
how he laughed at people who didn^t like it. 

George took the fiin more soberly and stuck to 
the umbrella. 

We hoisted the cover before we had lunch and 
kept it up all the afternoon, just leaving a little 
space in the bow, from which one of us could paddle 
and keep a lookout. In this way we made nine 
miles and pulled up for the night a little below 
Day’s Lock. 

I cannot honestly say that we had a merry even- 
ing. The rain poured down with quiet persistency. 
Everything in the boat was damp and clammy. 
Supper was not a success. Cold veal pie, when 
you don’t feel hungry, is apt, to cloy. I felt I wanted 
whitebait and a cutlet ; Harris babbled of soles and 

m 


Three Men In a Boat 


white-sauce and passed the remains of his pie to 
Montmorency, who declined it, and, apparently in- 
sulted by the offer, went and sat over at the other end 
of the boat by himself. 

George requested that we would not talk about 
these things, at all events until he had finished hi® 
cold boiled beef without mustard. 

We played penny nap after supper. We played 
for about an hour and a half, by the end of which 
time George had won foui-pence —George always is 
lucky at cards — and Harris and I had lost exactly 
twopence each. 

He thought we would give up gambling then. As 
Harris said, it breeds an unhealthy excitement when 
carried too far. George offered to go on and give us 
our revenge, but Harris and I decided not to battle 
any further against Fate. 

After that we mixed ourselves some toddy, and sat 
round and talked. George told us about a man ha 
had known who had come up the river two years ago, 
and who had slept out in a damp boat on just such 
another night as that was, and it had given him 
rheumatic fever, and nothing was able to save him, 
and he had died in great agony ten days afterward. 
George said he was quite a young man, and was 
engaged to be married. He said it was one of the 
saddest things he had ever known. 

And that put Harris in mind of a friend of his 
who had been in the Volunteers, and who had slept 
out under canvas one wet night down at Aldershot^ 
264 


Three Men In a Boat. 


•on just such another night as this/’ said Harris, 
and he had woke up in the morning a cripple for life. 
Harris said he would introduce us both to the man 
when he got back to town ; it would make our hearts 
bleed to see him. 

This naturally led to some pleasant chat about 
sciatica, fevers, chills, lung diseases and bronchitis, 
and Harris said how very awkward it would be if 
one of us were taken seriously ill in the night, seeing 
how far away we were from a doctor. 

There seemed to be a desire for something frolic- 
some to follow upon this conversation, and in a 
weak moment I suggested that George should get 
out his banjo and see if he could not give us a 
comic song. 

I will say for George that he did not want any 
pressing. There was no nonsense about having left 
his music at home or anything of that sort. He at 
once fished out his instrument and commenced to 
play ** Two Lovely Black Eyes.” 

I had always regarded Two Lovely Black Eyes ” 
as rather a commonplace tune until that evening. 
The rich vein of sadness that George extracted from 
it quite surprised me. 

The desire that grew upon Harris and myself, as 
the mournful strains progressed, was to fall upon 
each other^s neck and weep ; but by great effort we 
kept back the rising tears, and listened to the wild, 
yeamful melody in silence. 

When the chorus came we even made a desperate 

265 


l^hree Men In a Boat. 


effort to be merry. We refilled our glasses and 
joined in ; Harris, in a voice trembling with emotion, 
leading, and George and I following a taw words 
behind : 

“Two loTely black eyes; 

Ok I what a lurpriM t 
Only for telling a man he waa wrong, 

Two »» 

There we broke down. The unutterable pathos 
of George’s accompaniment to that two ” we were, 
in our then state of depression, unable to bear. 
Harris sobbed like a little child, and the dog howled 
till I thought his heart or his jaw must surely break. 

Greorge wanted to go on with another verse. He 
thought that when he had got a little more into the 
tune, and could throw more abandon ” as it were, 
into the rendering, it might not seem so s^. The 
feeling of the majority, however, was opposed to the 
experiment. 

There being nothing else to do, we went to bed — 
that is, we undressed ourselves, and tossed about at 
the bottom of the boat for some three or four hours. 
After which, we managed to get some fitful slumber 
imtil five A. M., when we all got up and had breakfast 

The second day was exactly like the first. The 
rain continued to pour down, and we sat, wrapped 
up in our mackintoshes, underneath the canvas, and 
drifted slowly down. 

One of us — I forget which one now, but I rather 
think it was myself— made a few feeble attempts 
during the course of the morning to work up the old 
266 


Three Men in a Boat. 


gypsy foolishness about being children of Nature 
and enjoying the wet; but it did not go down well at 
all. That— 

“ I cannot for the rain, not I ! ” 

was so painfully evident, as expressing the senti- 
ments of each of us, that to sing it seemed unneces- 
sary. 

On one point we were all agreed, and that was 
that, come what might, we would go through with 
this job to the bitter end. We had come out for a 
fortnight’s enjoyment on the river, and a fortnight’s 
enjoyment on the river we meant to have. If it 
killed us I well, that would be a sad thing for our 
friends and relations, but it could not be helped. We 
felt that to give in to the weather in a climate such 
as ours would be a most disastrous precedent. 

It’s only two days more,” said Harris, and we 
are young and strong. We may get over it all right, 
after all.” 

At about four o’clock we began to discuss our 
arrangements for the evening. We were a little past 
Goring then, and we decided to paddle on to Pang- 
boume, and put up there for the night. 

‘‘Another jolly evening I’* murmured George. 

We sat and mused on the prospect. We should 
be in at Pangbourne by five. We should finish 
dinner at, say half-past six. After that we could 
walk about the village in the pouring rain until bed- 
time ; or we could sit in a dimly lighted bar-parlor 
end read the almanac. 


267 


Three Men in a Boat. 


^'Why, the Alhambra would be almost more 
lively,” said Harris, venturing his head outside the 
cover for a moment and taking a survey of the sky. 

^^With a little supper at the * to follow,” I 

added, half unconsciously. 

“ Yes, it’s almost a pity we^ve made up our minds 
to stick to this boat,” answered Harris; and then 
there was silence for awhile. 

“ If we hadnH made up our minds to contract our 
certain deaths in this bally old coffin,” observed 
George, casting a glance of intense malevolence over 
the boat, “ it might be worth while to mention that 
there’s a train leaves Pangbourne, I know, soon after 
five, which would just land us in town in comfortable 
time to get a chop, and then go on to the place you 
mentioned afterward.” 

Nobody spoke. We looked at one another, and 
each one seemed to see his own mean and guilty 
thoughts reflected in the faces of the others. In 
silence we dragged out and overhauled the Glad- 
stone. We looked up the river and down the river; 
not a soul was in sight I 

Twenty minutes later, three figures, followed by 
" shamed-looking dog, might have been seen creeping 

ealthily from the boat-house at the Swan toward 


*A capital little out-of-the-vray restaurant, in the neighbor- 
hood of , where you can get oue of the best-cooked and 

cheapest little French dinners or suppers that I know of, with an 
excellent bottle of Beaune, for three-and-six ; and which I am not 
going to be idiot enough to adyertise. 

263 


Three Men in a Boat. 


the railway station, dressed in the following neither 
neat nor gaudy costume : 

Black leather shoes, dirty ; suit of boating flan- 
nels, very dirty; brown felt hat, much battered; 
mackintosh, very wet ; umbrella. 

We had deceived the boatman at Pangbourne. 
We had not had the face to tell him that we were 
running away from the rain. We had left the boat^ 
and all it contained, in his charge, with instructions 
that it was to be ready for us at nine the next morn- 
ing. If, we said if anything unforeseen should hap- 
pen, preventing our return, we would write to him. 

We reached Paddington at seven, and drove direct 
to the restaurant I have before described, where we 
partook of a light meal, left Montmorency, together 
with suggestions for a supper to be ready at half-past 
ten, and then continued our way to Leicester Square. 

We attracted a good deal of attention at the 
Alhambra. On our presenting ourselves at the pay- 
box we were gruffly directed to go round to Castle 
Street, and were informed that we were half an hour 
behind our time. 

We convinced the man, with some difficulty, that 
we were not ^Hhe world-renowned contortionists 
from the Himalaya Mountains,'^ and he took our 
money and let us pass. 

Inside we were still a greater success. Our fine 
bronzed countenances and picturesque clothes were 
followed round the place with admiring gaze. Wo 
were the cynosure of every eye. 

2^9 


Three Mei^ in a Boat, 


It was a proud moment for us all. 

We adjourned soon after the first ballet, and 
wended our way back to the restaurant, where supper 
was already awaiting us. 

I must confess to enjoying that supper. For about 
ten days we seemed to have been living, more or less, 
on nothing but cold meat, cake, and bread and jam. 
It had been a simple, a nutritious diet, but there had 
been nothing exciting about it, and the odor of 
Burgundy, and the smell of French sauces, and the 
sight of clean napkins and long loaves knocked as a 
very welcome visitor at the door of our inner man. 

We pegged and quaffed away in silence for awhile, 
until the time came when, instead of sitting bolt 
upright, and grasping the knife and fork firmly, we 
leaned back in our chairs and worked slowly and 
carelessly — when we stretched out our legs beneath 
the table, let our napkins fall, unheeded, to the floor, 
and found time to more critically examine the smoky 
ceiling than we had hitherto been able to do — when 
we rested our glasses at arm’s-length upon the table, 
and felt good, and thoughtful, and forgiving. 

Then Harris, who was sitting next to the window, 
drew aside the curtain and looked out upon the street. 

It glistened darkly in the wet, the dim lamps 
flickered with each gust, the rain splashed steadily 
into the puddles and trickled down the water-spouts 
into the running gutters. A few soaked wayfarers 
hurried past, crouching beneath their dripping urn- 
bi'ellas, the women holding Up their skirts. 

270 


Three Men in a Boat. 


Well/’ said Harris, reaching his hand out for his 
glass, “we have had a pleasant trip, and my hearty 
thanks for it to old Father Thames — ^but I think we 
did well to chuck it when we did. Here’s to Three 
Men well out of a Boat I ” 

And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs 
before the window, peering out into the night, gave 
a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast. 













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